My first influencing movie was "Gone With The Wind" as an infant being held by my mother in 1941.  What my ears heard and my eyes saw was imprinted by my brain into my heart and I became forever hooked on movie stories.  In 1957 as a 17-year-old high school senior at one of Louisiana's three best schools, my essay news commentary entry won first place in the New Orleans Times Picayune's "Biggest News of the Week" tri-state contest and that became a background major influence that I had a talent for writing.  My creative courses in college were focused in visual arts, and though I never took a creative writing course, many subsequent employment writing opportunities presented themselves down the years helping to hone that skill, ie: newspaper journalism,industrial editing publications, advertising, radio ads until I finally wrote my first novel, Beyond the Eagle,later redone as a screenplay.  Then I wrote a musical stage play drama titled, "Walking Blind" with the motivation to equal or exceed the famous "West Side Story."  Two other musical dramas followed: "Hiawatha" based on Longfellow's celebrated poem, and "Hank Williams - Last Encore" based on the life of the famous country singer.  Though slightly older, I am contemporary with and equally creative with, and influenced by two of the most creatively and financially successful director-writers in the movie industry whose work is among my all-time favorites.  They are Stephen Spielberg and George Lucas, who are justifiably ranked #205 in Forbes World's Billionaries listing.  I ask myself many times if I am equally creative, then why am I so poor?  I am still seeking the answer.  Someone once stated that there are two major influences on our lives:  luck and fate.  Perhaps that is where my answer lies, however, my life is not yet played-out <smile> as my optimistic Sagittarian nature keeps me jogging on the pathway. My motivations are several: to be creative because I am and can, creating is more inspiring and meaningful than being destructive (which is why I gave up the idea of an army career during my Vietnam tour of duty), my favorite thing is to watch a great movie story or read a great novel, to be remembered as a writer, to be partially as financially successful as Spielberg and Lucas so I can return again to Vietnam and enjoy the philanthropy of aiding many poor children in getting an education, and some other motivations more in my private domain.  These are things that motivate me, and if I had to describe my life's journey in a similar identity to two literary characters, I would probably say like the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.  Thank you Mark Twain.  

Graduating from a small, but excellent Louisiana land grant college (now MSU, a university), being commissioned through the ROTC program as an infantry lieutenant, completing the flight training program to earn a private pilot's license. To spend the many hours of writing and research to complete the speculative projects I have written to date is an achievement. I was awarded the honor of being the best junior cadet in my college ROTC corps in '63-'64. My only other significant award was the best essay news commentary in high school over a three-state area of participating seniors in 1957.