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The first novel I ever read, cover to cover, voraciously, was Piers Anthony’s Xanth book Centaur Aisle. Prior to that, I read a few Choose Your Own Adventure books, and some comics, but that was unquestionably the catalyst for my decades of reading and the first of a massive collection of books to follow. The action and relatively tame “naughty parts” (by today’s YA standards) kept my middle school brain turning the pages. I own the greater majority of his published works, as well as hundreds of other books by countless authors. You never know what might change someone’s life. For me it was that random Xanth novel.
Comic books were a huge influence, and I grew up reading Chris Claremont’s X-Men. More than any other comic it gave me a love for high-adventure stories with endless plot twists and complex secondary and tertiary storylines. It also showed me at a young age that strong characters could and should be of either gender and any race - that the actions of the characters, their relationships with others, and the complexity of their personalities are more important than how they look. He kept a great balance of powerful male and female protagonists and antagonists. Now, thirty years later, it seems the rest of the world is finally catching up to what comic books, science fiction, and fantasy creators and fans have known for decades. I will neither confirm nor deny that the Kingdom of Claremont, where my story takes place, was named after Chris Claremont. It could be completely coincidental.
When I was deciding between pursuing a career in writing or comic book publishing, I found a ton of support and inspiration at Orson Scott Card’s Hatrack River Forum. I spent a considerable amount of time there around 1998-1999, but I chose comic book publishing. Oops. I met Mr. Card at a book signing at The Tattered Cover in Denver around that time. He recognized my name from the forum posts, and gave me a ton of enthusiastic encouragement. It took me almost 20 years to finally decide to give writing a professional try, but the earliest seeds were being watered way back then.
Dungeons and Dragons. An endless source of ideas and creative stimulation. Over the years, I’ve played with some remarkable people. Those of you who have had those memorable campaigns know exactly what I’m talking about. While nothing in this story directly happened in a game, the seeds for ideas certainly took root in those fertile fields.
NaNoWriMo. I’ve been participating since 2006. I’ve written over a million words during that time. I did it for fun, thinking writing, like comic books, was another industry where you work really, really hard to be poor. Thus, until this past year, I never thought to pursue writing as a serious career. But I generated a ton of story for this series and many others. If this book does well, there are potentially a dozen or so books that could follow. Probably more. The stories always grow in the telling.
During my first year of NaNo, I met Jolie Mohn at a writing meetup prior to the event. It was her first year as well. We got along immediately, and have been pushing each other to write more ever since. She’s the biggest reason I tried to write 100k words ever year, and why I had to write 200k in 2017 - she’s still ahead of me in word count, but I managed to close the gap a little. I’m sure neither of us expected to pass a million words in the Novembers to follow, but we did. She also read an early draft of this story, and pointed out areas that needed improvement, and now the story is at least ten times better than that original draft because she was exactly right. Thanks for all the help, support, and competition over the years!
The Science Fiction and Fantasy Marketing Podcast. This was the single most important game-changer for me, and what made me decide to give writing a serious try. I’d always loved writing, just never thought it could generate a respectable income. However, after complete burnout from decades of banging my head against a brick wall as an artist, I took a mindless job doing construction on a mansion outside of Denver. I was able to listen to headphones while working, scraping mortar out from between bricks for 8 hours a day. I listened to five or six episodes each day, heard tales of independent writers maintaining control of their ideas and copyrights, finally given an avenue to get their stories out to the world without the frustration of finding an agent or giant publisher, or spending more time reading rejection letters than actually writing. Hearing how many of these writers were (eventually, after lots of hard work) making enough money to live a pretty decent life was incredibly inspiring. As a former artist, I’m used to working really hard for little to no real money despite my skills and experience. So making ANY money as a writer would already be a huge step up. Anyway, I want to thank Lindsey, Jeff, Joe, and all their great guests for lighting a fire under my butt as I mindlessly scraped mortar with cramped hands for six months.
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