Today I wrote the first words of a thriller that’s been in my head for a while. You can follow along in this journal to see how it progresses.

My story begins: “There’s a line in a country song that goes, ‘Chase after the dream, don’t chase after the money.’ Well, I’m here to tell you that’s wrong. Fuck the dream. Chase the money. Always chase the money.”

It’s a story about two innocent men who are trying to raise money for their start-up, but become the target of the Russian mafia when they partner with the wrong person. It involves a crazy artist, a German baron and a famous painting that’s been missing since World War II.

I got the idea for it a long time ago, when my business partner, Roy, and I were in the midst of fund-raising for a start-up venture. It was very stressful. We were constantly pitching investors, and the pressure to raise money never let up. We were at bar in New York, letting off steam after a particularly intense meeting and I said that if someone put a gun to my head to rob me, I’d probably pitch him to invest in the company. We joked around about that idea, building up fanciful stories about what might happen, and that became the kernel of an idea for something I might write someday.

It’s not the only book idea I’ve had. Back in 1999, I started working on a thriller based on my experiences in the Vietnam war. It was about a man who died in the war, whose son shows up to cause trouble for the man he thinks murdered him. I wrote about five chapters, but then I got involved in several business ventures and I never had the time to go back to it.  Now I do have the time, but it’s not the book I want to write any more.

Instead I want to tell a story that’s inspired by the many years that I’ve spent in startups, working with Roy on everything from e-commerce to renaissance art. I’ve been plotting it out for a long time, and now that I’m retiring, I’ll actually have the time to work on it.

Congratulate me – today I began the first chapter of my new life as a writer.

Michael