The story began after 16 years working 60 hour weeks at a software company I had helped build from a startup.
Due to some less than ideal management decisions from the board and CEO, it all came crashing down, and I found myself with a lot of free time very suddenly. I decided to take some time off to recover my sanity, so of course I became a writer … since what’s more sane than that? I didn’t know how long it would take to write my first novel, or pretty much any other aspect of the writing and publishing process. Nothing unusual there, ay.
It took me roughly 6 months.
I got a head start by stealing the characters and backstory from a movie script I had written back in my college creative writing class. Using that as background meant I already had some solid plot ideas and characters to write a new story about.
I duly published my novel, Ferrous Oxide (which is the scientific name for rust)…
On Amazon and gleefully joined the other billion and one writers doing the same thing. Of course it will be a best seller, that’s what happens right?
Surprisingly that’s not what happened. It did sell a few copies and I did get some feedback, which was nice, everyone that DID buy it seemed to like it, but it was a pretty exclusive little club that much was obvious.
One question kept coming back to me. Over and over and over again.
How did we get here? What’s she running away from? Ok, that’s two questions but they both point to the same problem. What the hell is the backstory behind this rollercoaster ride?
So I decided to novelize the film scripts and write the backstory as the second book. Obviously, it would be the prequel to book one. It hadn’t been my intention to write two books, much less three… so all fingers pointing at George Lucas and Star Wars are not quite on point. It just happened by accident, it wasn’t intentional.
Of course, I followed the usual path, still being kind of a newbie in the publishing game, and published Wire flyer (book 2 in the series) on Amazon. Let’s see how this goes.
Again, it didn’t really set the publishing world on fire. However, pretty much everyone who bought book one came back and followed up with buying book two, so it got a start at any rate.
And then a funny thing happened. In addition to nice reviews, another question popped up over and over and over again. What happened to Vanessa ? Did she get out of hospital ? What about Will ?
Ok, that’s three questions this time, but again, all pointed at the same thing. Where does the story go now… that can’t be the end?
So that’s how it became a trilogy. The last book, Super Glue…
Took me years to finish, I must have rewritten it a dozen times. I struggled with where it would go, what would happen, there was no obvious plot in my head. There were other pressures of course, like how to pay for this lavish writers lifestyle of ramen and chicken soup.
During this time, I was diagnosed with stage four cancer.
That was a bummer to be sure. It didn’t really help me to get book three finished either. Even though I was given 3 months to make it, eventually after almost a year, I beat it. Five days a week radiation and weekly chemotherapy for seven months was no picnic, as any cancer patient will understand, so I wasn’t very healthy but I didn’t have cancer.
Recovery took more than two years before I felt even slightly normal again. During this time I realized what had to happen to the main characters in book three. I FINALLY got it finished after 3 years of not being able to wrestle any idea onto the page.
It turned out to have perhaps the most exciting plot twist I had ever dreamed up.
So I published Super Glue, book 3 of the trilogy, and could breathe a sigh of relief.
Again, without marketing, it was only really successful in terms of the readers who came back after the first 2 books to tell me they really loved the third book as well.
After all my trials and tribulations, that was satisfying. I felt it had all been worthwhile.
Some time later, a producer took an interest and asked me if I could write the production bible and the 9 or 10 episodes, based on the 3 books, for a mini-series.
Wow. However, before I could get my teeth into that, I wound up in a coma from a rare blood disorder in the ICU. It took 2 months in that shop of horrors to get off life support and be sent home as an outpatient.
I’m doing much better now, I learned how to walk again and now 6 months later, look to have that beat too.
I couldn’t be more blessed, and am thinking now what I can do to further this ridiculous career and write more stories.
To learn more about my Books you can visit my Amazon here.
