Growing up I was a voracious reader, devouring fantasy, sci-fi, and horror. I burned through Edgar Rice Burrough’s John Carter and Tarzan series, Theodore Sturgeon novels, all the Robert Heinlein I could find, with a smattering of Zane Grey westerns. I have always enjoyed good stories, good food, and painting, but was taught that creative writing was a tedious, structured journey and a difficult career path.
At UNC-Charlotte, I continued reading fantasy and sci fi, adding more horror to my extra reading. With a diverse interest in a wide range of subjects, I chased psychology, sociology, and the earth sciences, before finally settling on a practical degree in business administration. I worked my way through school, discovering a real knack for cooking.
Learning as I went, moving from restaurant to restaurant, I studied each business and how they did what they did, before moving on to the next adventure. This experience, as much as school, helped me understand life as a learning experience. Everyone’s journey teaches them their own set of valuable things.
I met and married Gail, the love of my life. We gathered for family time with her daughter on the front porch. Swept away by Anne McCaffrey, Douglas Adams, and Piers Anthony, reading aloud became a cherished evening event. Life was good.
Fast forward some years, to my wife and I buying a small-town homestyle restaurant and moving to Southwest Virginia. Having been in the restaurant business as employees and managers, we decided to take the plunge and become our own employers. Successfully surviving without a regular paycheck and being exposed to discovery writing, made a career as a writer begin to look possible.
Our life was going well until it took a personally devastating turn. Our daughter and son-in-law, taking our granddaughter, moved across the country. This was a good thing for their family but, for my wife and I, we were separated from the folks most important to us. I sunk myself completely into the restaurant. My wife helped, but spent most of her time building a soap-making business, gardening, and taking care of her mother, eventually moving her in next door.
After a time, as a small escape, I began writing my granddaughter a short story about a thirteen-year old’s coming of age in a world of dragons. I was sure I could knock out a cute story before her birthday. I came up for air three months and 200,000 words later, having created a world. Happily realizing I didn’t need to outline and plot out every arc, a pantser was born. Shortly after, things took an unexpected turn and the so-called recession hit. Again, the restaurant required my undivided attention.
Seven years of reinventing our business and becoming lean to survive hard times didn’t allow for much time to write, but I had the bug and wrote a few short stories to save ideas. It was as we saw the light at the end of our financial tunnel that our personal definition of devastating event changed forever. My wife was diagnosed with Pancreatic Cancer.
Hiring a manager, we plunged down the darkest of rabbit holes. We had babied this restaurant for thirty years and just like that, it had to go. For me, all the things we had accumulated took on a frivolous, unimportant energy. Devoting my time to caring for my wife I discovered, between appointments, treatments, and operations, odd blocks of time. With my wife’s encouragement, I used my stories as a distraction and U-Tube as a school. I dove into my imagination and began to write again.
I now have several books I believe are very good and look forward to publication. I am beginning to take this new career path seriously.