Some time ago, I was asked to write a piece on hormonal imbalances in pubescent males.
It is not unusual for me to be asked to write such things, because of my scientific background.

I dutifully wrote the piece, and handed it over; but I was extremely unhappy with it.
The reason for my unease was that the piece was Boring!

I do not do boring!  (not intentionally, at any rate).

It stuck in my mind that I had written about one of the most psychologically 'challenging' phases of the human life-span, and made it sound dull.

It nagged me.  It irked me.  It annoyed me.  It bugged me.  It...  do you get the idea, yet?

I let it simmer away in the back of my mind for quite some time – that being where a good deal of my best creative work is done – until the muse finally struck.

When the (somewhat oblique) way of writing about the subject did hit me, as described in the foreword to Old Spice : the Album, I must confess that I did not stop laughing for about three days, as I worked out the basic storyline in my head.

Try this for size:

The predominant psychological effect of puberty on a young lad takes the form of sexual fantasies.
There is no perversion involved, as such, but one starts to fantasise; and these fantasies become consuming – both of time and energy.  If anyone tells you (and this includes girls – I have received many, many testimonies to the effect) that they did not spend a year or two, living in an ideal world with a film star, pop-singer, or whatever, then they are lying to you.

Fantasies of being big and strong and heroic (boys, this is), but of sometimes being the fluffy puppy type that needs to be mothered, are not only not unusual – they are the norm!

Don't say you don't remember.  It was the best time of your life – before all the complexities of the real world, and real romance, spoiled it for you.

And that was the story:

Take a large number of these boyhood fantasies, and make them really happen.

That is:  Make them really happen to a real person, who is not eleven years old; who has been through all the stuff that comes later; and who really doesn't stand a chance of fulfilling the role he has to play!

The number of fantasies included in the book (it turned out that big) is huge.  I trimmed it down so that almost every word is there as part of one or more of the fantasy elements – which are interwoven to a frighteningly complex degree.

Can you imagine how you would feel, how you would react, if you had to live through events that you daydreamed about when you were a kid?  Fighting monsters, metaphorical or otherwise?  Being the hero, who saves the fair maiden?  Being the Superman?

Yeah.  Right.
What would it take to stop you from running, screaming, for the hills?

Which management technique should one use, exactly, to fight a dragon?

I have never enjoyed writing anything, so much as I did this piece.

Even more wonderful (for me, at least) was the fact that I had had to build a world where such things could happen, but could not explain How, because the why of it was not part of the fantasies!

Translation:  Sequels!