Well, I still vividly remember when my writing skills were recognized by my english teachers in elementary school. I was quickly summoned to write in UIL ready writing competitions. I remember what terrible topics I had to choose from and write about for the competitions. You know what I mean. When you are eight or nine you want to write about slaying dragons or some other whimsical topic of childhood, but no it was always about current political or social events. At that age I was playing outside and had little time for concerns over current matters depicted in the news. Needless to say, I never did well in the competitions! Later in high school again my talents were recognized during my honor english class. There were several others in that same class that also wrote well so the teacher would zip through the necessary curriculum  and let the class create stories based on the material (the other three classes were quite jealous).  At that time as I remember I was quite fascinated with horror. On one project the teacher allowed us to create a story based on whatever we chose.  I chose to write a sequel story to the 1983 movie Amityville 3-D. My story, Reflections of Amityville, blew my teacher away. She confessed to me that it really shook her nerves. Anyway, she asked if she could keep the story and enter it into a contest. I humbly obliged after receiving an A++ on the story. Thinking back I am not sure what became of the contest, all I know was my wonderful grade made me feel excellent.  Flash forward through all the other enduring years of schooling where creative talent took a back seat to curriculum. Soon afterwards my employment lead to other areas, but I did tinker with writing trying my hand at Sci-fi. Unfortunately I never finished the story. Future tech is difficult to create and looking back I am so glad I never finished it. Then one day I began considering writing a fantasy story. Odd that I never attempted one before considering my fascination with the subject matter. In 2007 I began the venture and completed the first and second parts of a two part storyline in 2009. The two stories combined total more than 300,000 words. Unfortunately during the writing of the second story I was diagnosed with cancer. Thankfully, I had the stories to keep my mind from the terrible grim reality I was facing. The first, THE MIDDLE TIMES: Rise of the Goblin King was published in summer 2010 followed up by the October release of the second, THE MIDDLE TIMES: Lost Kingdom.  In November 2010, a short story legend named THE MIDDLE TIMES: A Holiday Tale (Legend of the Rose Sapphire) was released to amazon kindle. In spring 2011, the grand adventure fantasy resumed with the release of third installment titled THE MIDDLE TIMES: Search For Elray. Successfully completing the chemotherapy and hopefully cancer-free, two more legends were released at amazon entitled TMT: Legend of the 7 Armanents & TMT: Legend of the Everlasting Emerald early summer 2011. Midsummer, second editions of the first two books were released each containing restored edited content from the original 2010 versions. In early summer 2012, the fourth installment in the fantasy series will debut titled THE MIDDLE TIMES: Journey Beyond. A new legend will soon follow midsummer entitled TMT: Legend of the Dragon Dismal.