Today’s bonus question: What required four personal computers and more than 30 years?

Answer: My first novel.

In September, I will release a fantasy novel, “Horse Stalker.” It’s Book One of a series entitled THE ROOT OF GLORY.

The story will be available in print and ebook versions. In September and October, I will donate $1 to local school groups for every copy sold. In the coming days, I’ll share more details about benefits for those school groups.

It’s no exaggeration to say the novel has been years in the making. I remember typing up a draft first chapter in the temporary quarters of a Healdsburg farmhouse while I was working as an intern for The Press Democrat in the winter of 1979. Some people write several different book-length stories before they have one ready to take to market. I wrote the same story over and over and over. I couldn’t give it up, and I couldn’t get it right. Moreover, I often needed to lay it aside for long stretches in order to be a husband, a dad and a human being.

There were many times I wondered if I would ever be able to complete it. Eventually I finished a draft of the entire series. Then I began to wonder if I could ever publish it. I went back and began to work on what would become Book One. In the last few years, members of my writers group played a crucial role in reshaping and refining the story. And my daughters and my wife Carol pushed me to make it better still.

At last, I believe the first book is ready. So do those I trust. Here is what my colleague, news columnist Chris Smith wrote of “Horse Stalker:”

“From Robert Digitale’s imagination and heart springs an odyssey that beckons the reader with alliances both dark and enlightened, landscapes enchanting and perilous, first love and treachery. The fantastic journey plummets and ascends along the full trajectory of human potential, from the sinister to the holy. Saddle up!”

You can read the first chapter of “Horse Stalker” here.