A New Chapter

 

I started this site with the intent of it becoming a blog, but that never happened. Instead, I am now using it for what it was truly meant for: my writing career.

Years ago, I set my sights on becoming a writer. A novelist. My goal was to become a successful, published writer and make that my living. I majored in English at the University of Kansas for that reason. I graduated with my English degree in 2002 and then… nothing.

I can say life got in the way, which is always true, but the truth is I lacked motivation and drive. I had “ideas” but didn’t do anything beyond a failed attempt to start a book around 2005. I got a few champers in and knew it wasn’t good. I didn’t like what I was writing, so I shelved it.

Everyone thinks they have a story to tell, but it’s actually not that easy. You might have a theme, a concept, a cool character, but a full fledged story with a beginning, middle, and end? Probably not. In your head, you have the trailer, but not the full length feature. That was my problem.

I had cool ideas, cool characters, cool action sequences, cool vibes, but never a cohesive story. I kept kicking around ideas for so long, they started to collapse under their own weight like an imploding star. I always felt I had the skill, but could never get the story.

I found myself in a new job in 2017. I worked a lot with a guy who was really intrigued by my writing dream and he was the one who pushed me out of my cocoon. “You should do it, man,” he said. Our conversations really got me riled up. I actually felt like I had been wasting so much time and needed to get off my ass and take my shot. That’s when I bought this domain and put up the site.

Now, it took a few more years, but a spark was truly lit. One of the story ideas I had been mulling over with found new life. I made a few key decisions and the creative juices began flowing like hydrants. I made a road map. I developed my characters. I created a world. I initially planned a 20 something page synopsis that ballooned to 200. My plan for one book became a trilogy. I started writing and writing and writing, and I fell in love with it.

As of this post, I have two full length books written and about 75% done on the third. After that, I’m going back to edit and streamline. I have lots of corrections to make. The picture here is of all the typos from book 1. Things spell check won’t catch. I tend to type fast and miss things. “The” instead of “They.” “Hug” instead of “Huge,” etc. I need to trim pages and extraneous words. I also need to add details that became important later, and remove elements I thought would matter, but ended up not.

My goal is to present a completely finished, ready to go trilogy to publishers. As a creative person, I feel that I must complete all three books in order to feel like I’ve finished the story. I’m not ready to reveal the title just yet, so for now, I will simply call it “Rebellion.” It’s a sci-fi story full of action, danger, suspense, double crosses, forbidden romance, and political drama, set in a dark future where the worst people have taken generational power, and a resistance must rise up to fight.

Stay tuned.