One of the most valuable sources for me as a creative writer is my own attic. By attic, I don’t mean a physical place where wasps buzz around in overheated spaces on summer afternoons when your mother demands that it’s finally time to get all those old boxes of Christmas decorations and your dad’s old military gear sorted out. Instead, I mean my mental attic.

As I wrote my sci-fi cyberpunk novel, THE JUICE, I tried to imagine New York several decades into the future by sifting through all my experiences living there, and the people I knew. Among those I conjured up were some executives at media companies, who who helped inspire the creation of my character Petra Cardinale, whom I wrote about here. Another treasure in my attic is a guy by the name of Carnation France. As I filtered through my memories, he popped out and gave me a big, fun-loving grin.