I’m trying to start a new series here on Type AJ Negative based on the Ask Me Anything premise. You ask a question and I answer it, either honestly or sarcastically or both. I will shoot for honesty every time, but sarcastic questions deserve sarcastic replies. To do that, I need questions from you, the readers of Type AJ Negative. If you have a question, feel free to drop it in the comments below.

For the first Ask Me Anything (AMA going forward), I received a great question from Darque Pixie Designs over on Facebook. The question is:

Do you find your inspiration more at certain times of the year?

I love that question. It takes a question writers hear often and becomes specific.

To answer honestly, yes, I do. Let me explain.

I write throughout the year on whatever pops in my head at the time. But every year since 2001, usually starting around July, I start researching the events of 9/11. I write a story every year around the anniversary of the events of that day. It’s somewhat of an obsession. I start planning the story out in July, sometimes earlier.

As of the writing of this post, it’s been 23 years since the attacks on America killed nearly three thousand people—and many more have died since from sicknesses developed from being at ground zero. In those 23 years, I have written 24 stories, one on the night of the events of that day. The other 23 have been written throughout the years, each one titled the number of the anniversary.

These are some of the hardest stories I have ever written. Almost all of them have moments of heart wrenching sadness and to put my mind in the place to be able to write them is exhausting. The longest of these stories is 22 at just over fourteen thousand words. It’s the only piece I’ve written that takes place in one of the towers. The shortest of these is 23, at not even six hundred words. Probably the most emotional is 19, because of the subject matter of that particular story—a message left on an answering machine by someone write before she died that day.

Usually, when I finish one of these stories, I don’t write anything else for over a week, sometimes two or three. It’s almost like a mourning phase for me, and it takes a little time to move along from the emotions of the research and the writing.

Darque Pixie Designs, I hope that answers your question and thank you for sending it my way.

To everyone else, please give this post a like and follow if you don’t already. Also, if you have a question you would like to ask, drop it in the comments below.

Until we meet again, my friends, be kind to one another.

A.J.