Four years ago I wrote an article titled Death of a Fictionsmith. It was a very honest take on the difficulties and disappointments surrounding spending almost a decade on a project and seeing the dream wither and die.

In an effort to fight for my own mental health in 2020, I wrote. A lot.

I finally finished The Wind Merchant trilogy I began in 2012. I began drafting a new novel trying to work through the loss of my dad. I co-wrote and published a new middle-grade book with my daughter based on her vivid imagination (while mine was feeling rather dried up).

The latter we published under the pseudonym of C.W. Task.

When asked, I mention that the name is based off of my family’s pre-AOL internet account: CWTS94C.

I figured if nobody knew that I wrote under the name C.W. Task, then the pressure would be off. I would be as free as the kid who wrote for fun on his family computer.

But this isn’t Field of Dreams. Just because you write it, it doesn’t mean people will find it. I had a hard enough time with that under my own name. So I stopped trying to write for a large audience.

I started writing for my daughter.

I’ve been on a journey of trying to balance creativity and family.

One of the reasons I stepped away from film production before she had turned a year old was to try and make sure my family got more of my time.

However, I still felt the need for creatively as it is a means to work through some of the more difficult parts of life.

Storytelling is a powerful skill.

Stories help us make sense out of our experiences. Stories help reach the heart when lessons may pass through one ear and go out the other. Stories connect.

And I wanted to connect with my children.

I’ve read that parents have the most impact with their children by the time they turn twelve. Right now my kids are 10, 8, and 4 years old. And it took a lockdown for me to realize that I could use my experience in storytelling to spend quality time with them.

And thus C.W. Task was unleashed.

The first book was about defining and leaning into a family identity. While it is a story for 6–12 year olds, there are two fathers in it: one who actively engages with his daughter daily, and one who regrets having wasted his daughter’s childhood chasing his own endeavors.

As wonderful as it was to collaborate with my daughter, I needed to tell this story for myself as well.

While The Invisible House was about family identity and spending time together, the second book, The Glass Unicorn, is about the fragility of innocence and how we interact with our close family members today will shape our family tree going forward. (My daughter wanted it to be a story about the two sisters going on an adventure together back in time to Scotland and I ran with it.)

My hope is to write books like these with each child while they are going through elementary school so I can purposefully invest my time with them.

If they want to take up the mantle of C.W. Task beyond that, I’ll gladly guide them and help them through the storytelling process.