What Inspired Me to Write ERF
For years, ERF lived in my head.
I can’t tell you exactly when it started. I just know it did—quietly at first—like a strange little idea that kept showing up uninvited, hanging around, getting comfortable, and refusing to leave. Looking back, I think it came from a mix of two things that have always been part of me: my tendency to take life a little too seriously sometimes… and my ability to see things from a hilariously twisted angle.
I guess that means I’m a man of duality—part “responsible adult,” part “what if this situation was way more ridiculous than it has any right to be?”—with a very active imagination.
And as ERF took up more and more space in my mind, something started happening.
I’d just be living my life—standing somewhere normal, doing something ordinary—and suddenly I’d picture a scene from the story so clearly that I’d start laughing out loud right there on the spot. No warning. No build-up. Just boom—a mental image hits me, and I’m trying not to lose it in public like a man who has just been handed a secret joke from another dimension.
Naturally, this made people around me wonder if I’d lost my mind.
Who am I kidding? Most people who know me are already well aware that I lost my mind.
But still—someone would ask, “What’s so funny?”
And I’d try to explain what I was seeing in my head… but without context, it didn’t make sense. It sounded like nonsense. Like I was trying to describe a dream I had after falling asleep with the TV on and eating questionable gas station nachos.
That’s the problem with the funniest ideas—they often require the full setup. A world. A tone. A character who takes everything seriously while everything around him refuses to cooperate.
And for a long time, ERF stayed exactly where it began: inside my head, cracking me up when it felt like it, confusing anyone who happened to witness the fallout.
Until one day, after years of that, I finally decided: enough is enough.
So I sat down… and I wrote it.
And here’s the wild part: it went fast. Real fast.
Because I’d already been “writing” it for years—just not on paper. The story was already living and moving in my mind, like it had been rehearsing backstage for a long time, waiting for me to finally open the curtain.
Honestly, I was planning to release another book before this one. That was the plan. The schedule. The responsible, orderly timeline.
But this novella came out of the blue.
Or maybe it didn’t come out of the blue. Maybe it came out of the part of me that knew I needed it—and that other people might need it too.
While writing, I had to take breaks from laughing too hard. I’m not exaggerating. There were moments I had to stop and breathe because I was laughing so much I thought I might fall out of my chair.
More than once, I almost did.
And somewhere between the laughter and the writing, I realized something:
I believe ERF is for all of us who tend to take life too seriously at times.
Because life is heavy. Responsibility is real. Stress doesn’t ask permission. And sometimes, without realizing it, we carry the weight so long we forget what it feels like to breathe—really breathe—and laugh like we used to.
Jesus told us we have to become more like children if we want to understand the mysteries of heaven.
That’s not just a cute line. That’s wisdom.
Kids have a way of seeing the world that adults lose. They can find wonder in the smallest things. They can laugh hard and fast and fully. They can move on from frustration quicker than we do. They don’t need everything to be perfectly controlled before they allow themselves to enjoy life.
There’s some good advice in that.
So, if you’re stressed—if life has you feeling clenched up, overwhelmed, and worn down—try taking a step back and looking at things through the eyes of your inner child.
It might be hidden deep within, sure.
But trust me… It’s still there.
Waiting to come out and play.
And that’s really what ERF is: A reminder that joy isn’t childish.
It’s powerful.
It’s healing.
And sometimes, it’s exactly what we need most.