The creative impulse : it's origins.

While evaluating the myriad of possible concepts for our efforts, we find the irresistible urge to draw upon the skew and twisted events of our life. We look to those unusual encounters that have meaning because of context in which they occurred rather than because of the mundane nature of the events themselves.

What we mean here is of course not Aunt Marge dropping the potato salad at the family reunion. What is meaningful is that she dropped the potato salad out of fright when we discovered she has a deathly allergy to sheep and cousin Barry was just showing her the new pet he "found."

The potato salad and the sheep. What strikes me is the fear of harm causing such material damage. Yes, potato salad is deadly serious in the M.S. family.

Now, the story revolving around the deployment of a fear weapon that relied on the metabolized compounds distributed in genetically engineered potatoes ...that has real merit. Coupled with a maniacal central government that will stop at nothing to keep its citizen's mandate by invoking televised orchestration of fear impulses ...ah.

Of course, the idea is not new. The trick is to merely execute it well so that its relevance is inherent in the fine writing of the story. The M.S. factor increases when it is the mundane potato which is the focus of enormous government effort. Yes, the federal potato force mandated to ensure that the food supply composed of select root vegetables meets the highest government standards.

Now we tell the story from one of the mid-level government drones employed in the potato police.

We're beginning to get somewhere.