Ne cede malis (Do not give in to misfortune)
Roughly twenty years after conception, I had a rough draft of the first two books: The Lost Warrior and To Rouse Leviathan. Then came the arduous task of finding a publisher. Normally, aspiring authors publish a few short stories, which they present to an agent, who represents them before the mainstream publishers. I, of course, took an absolutely contrary path. My wife had a chance meeting with an established author, who gave her the name of his agent. The agent directed me to a major publishing company and before I knew what was happening, I was corresponding with their head editor. Here I was with two 500 plus page manuscripts, no prior publications, and no agent, successfully contacting a publisher. I thought I had it made! This wasn't so hard. What was everyone complaining about?
After two years of critiques, revisions, and waiting, the editor suddenly informed me that she had another major project and could not work with me any longer. She said that I had talent, and with some more polishing, my books might be marketable. The manuscripts were returned and the door closed.
The problem with starting high is that there's farther to fall. I was devastated, and seriously considered a large bonfire in the back yard. But reason prevailed, and I shelved the project for a while. Then I discovered the world of "print on demand,"and explored that option. If I could just get the books published, and if my family and friends could have actual hard copies of my works, that would be enough. So I made the final edits and submitted them for publishing with a company on the East Coast. For a few years the company sold them on their website, and for a while on Barnes & Noble and Amazon websites. I would also buy batches at author discount and peddle them to friends and acquaintances. Life was good and I quietly labored on a third novel---Leviathan's Wake.
Then a friend introduced me to the fine folks at Fear Nought and the rest is history, or may be.
Non omnis moriar (a part of me will never die).
Scriptor vanus (Writer of the fantastic)
With a slightly twisted childhood and a steady diet of fantasy and science fiction, it was probably inevitable that I tried my hand at writing in that genre. I wrote a few short stories in high school and took creative writing classes in college. People told me I had some ability, but there was never any time. My natural father was a wandering jack of all trades who never kept a job for any length of time and died when I was six. My stepfather had a strict sense of duty that kept him at a blue collar job that he disliked for thirty-three years. Given those two models, I chose something in between. I found career paths that I enjoyed, but always yearned to write, to create works that would transport the reader to places of wonder, where things were as they ought to be. But life kept intruding---and time passed. After I received my Bachelor's degree, my wife encouraged me to write for a while before taking a job. I wanted to, but couldn't get past my sense of family duty and work ethic.
So, over the years, in my spare time, I began to craft a world, complete with geography, biology, history, cultures, races and languages. Fortunately, I still had the support of my wonderful wife. And, since we kept going back to school, we never got around to having kids, which left more creative time. A rudimentary storyline also started to unfold. I had studied enough history that I knew most myths and legends had some basis in truth but had been distorted or exaggerated over time. What if the stories of elves, trolls, goblins, and vampyres followed that pattern? What if there were such creatures, their true natures lost in the mists of time? I built on this premise and ended up with a collection of races from other worlds that formed the bases of earth's mythology. Then I added in my favorite themes---the ruined civilizations with remnants of former technology, lost cities with lurking menaces, the feudal era, classic heroes and villains---and the universe of Kalnaroag was born. I also wanted to include old-fashioned themes like loyalty, faith, love, sacrifice, courage, good vs evil, friendship, and honor, concepts that would forever speak to the reader's heart.
Helluo librorum (glutton of books)
In junior high and high school, my universe expanded even further. Edgar Rice Burroughs provided countless hours of roving across fantastic worlds, in the company of great heroes and fighting men, battling strange beings and hideous monsters. I wandered the ocher dead sea bottoms of Barsoom, travelled through the giant trees and perpetual clouds of Venus, journeyed to lost cities and the center of the earth with Lord Greystoke, and ventured beyond the farthest star. Andre Norton took me to ruined civilizations inhabited by evil, mysterious lurkers in the dark. I spent more time enjoying gritty realism and '60's philosophies of Heinlein, went on my first fantasy quest with Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, braved the shifting sands of Dune, and experienced Niven's strange worlds. On the darker side I sampled Robert E. Howard, H.P. Lovecraft, and Poe.
As I grew older, I left the ray guns and space ships behind and began to indulge in pure fantasy. Feist, Eddings, and Jordan became my favorites. I devoured all of David Gemmell's books, fascinated by his reluctant heroes and realistic, inspiring tales of battle. Simon Green and Jim Butcher are my current authors of choice.
I am old enough to have seen the original Star Trek, Outer limits, and Twilight Zone on television. King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, the Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, the Mysterious Island, First Men in the Moon, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, One Million Years B.C. and Forbidden Planet are the classic movies I grew up with, back in the age of double features and Saturday matinees.
The neighbor boy across the field shared my love of the strange, and we exchanged books and watched movies together. When the other kids were playing sports, we were carving wooden swords and spears, roaming the nearby woods and fields with an assortment of primitive weapons, slaying untold numbers of hay bales in the barn loft, and spying on the monks at the Trappist Abbey.
Ad Astra (to the stars)
Whatever the cause, I had it bad. My mom was a casual disciple of the old masters of science fiction and fantasy, such as Abrahan Merritt, H. Rider Haggard, Jules Verne, and H.G. Wells, and introduced me to them. My father liked to watch an occasional science fiction movie, but I don't remember him reading much fiction. One of my relatives had a decidedly overactive imagination, and spent years in a mental institution. So the inheritance factor is unclear in my case.
As a child, my parents encouraged me to read and gave me time alone to wander and wonder. I left the earth at an early age. During grade school, I climbed aboard Robert A. Heinlein's 'Rocket Ship Galileo' and made my first visit to outer space. Later, my guides for interstellar adventures were Lester del Rey and Isaac Asimov (writing as Paul French). I especially remember a story called 'Lucky Starr and the Pirates of the Asteroids'.
When I had read all of the sci-fi books in our school's modest library, I turned to prehistory. Anything but the boring little streets of my small home town. I was practically raised on cave men and dinosaurs and the primeval earth. My poor parents had to endure homemade Cretaceous dioramas on their living room floor. I recall my stepfather complaining about having to watch TV through a jungle and stepping on dinosaurs.
Cogitatio longa, vita brevis (Imagination is long, life is short)
What is it that makes one person enthralled with fantasy and science fiction, while another is bored or repulsed by anything beyond the ordinary? Some people cannot seem to make it past sports, shopping or fast cars. Some (gasp) won't even read fiction at all, let alone science fiction. Is there a "wonder" gene or an imagination quotient (IQ) that we inherit from our ancestors? Or is the fascination with the otherworldly a product of our childhood? Or a combination of both?
In searching for the answers to these questions, I suppose one should start with an examination of the lineage. Did your parents, grandparents, aunts or uncles tend to ponder the night sky or wonder what was over the next ridge? Did they seem bored by the mundane, the routine of ordinary life? What kind of books did they read, what type of movies did they watch?
Next, analyze the experiences of childhood, the elements of the early environment. Perhaps the answer lies there. Was the child allowed to wonder, to exercise their imagination? Did they have enough free time to think? Were they exposed to the great works of science fiction and fantasy? Did some friend or relative lead them to the lands beyond? Or was the environment so harsh and unforgiving that it drove them to seek a brief escape from reality?
