At the risk of sounding like I’m bragging – and remember what I quoted University of Alabama Coach Bear Bryant as saying waaaaay back in Post #2: “It ain’t braggin’ if you can back it up” – there are few people who have my relentless work ethic. One was Ray Dryden.

There are people who work to put food on the table and help support their family. There are people who work to get the material things they want out of life. There are people who enjoy their work and people who don’t enjoy their work. And then there are people who love their work just for and of itself. They love the essence of work.

That’s how it was for me after I left my parents’ clothing stores and became a full-time writer. I’m blessed to be able to write for my young audience. I’m blessed to earn a living – and a darn good one – from putting my thoughts into words and my words into a form that entertains millions of people.

Ray Dryden was like that. A producer by trade, he was a born storyteller. I intuitively knew he would fit well into writing for children’s television. At present he seemed to be loving it, devouring script assignments as quickly as I could hand them out to him.

Now, along with me, he would have a new and different kind of opportunity – pounding out five episodes from story springboards to treatments to scripts in just two short weeks. I was thought he’d love it as much as I knew I would.

What I didn’t count on was that just a week later it would turn into one of the most traumatic events in my writing career…