Writing About Writing

               I’ve been an avid reader since I read Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card in the 8^th grade.  It was assigned to me by one of my least favorite teachers in one of my least favorite classes (an advanced English class that was tedious and boring).  However, in assigning us to read Ender’s Game that teacher gave me a lifelong appreciation for Science Fiction and Fantasy novels that has never waned. You never know where important moments in your life will come from.

                I remember putting off reading the assigned chapters until the last possible second.  I think she’d assigned us to read the first 5 chapters the first week.  The night, before I laid in bed around 9:00 picking up the book to read those chapters. I didn’t put the book down until nearly 4 in the morning.  I’d finish it the next day after school. 

From that day forward I plowed through the Ender’s series (It was 4 books at that time), the Foundation Series, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy and every other piece of science fiction I could get my hand on.  I dabbled in fantasy with Watership Down and Lord of the Rings, but struggled to get into some of the big series at the time like Wheel of Time and Sword of Truth.  Eventually, my tastes expanded and I dove into the Hyperion Cantos, the Culture Series, Game of Thrones, First Law, etc. 

At some point I started coming up with ideas of my own.  I wrote out some vague plans for an ambitious series and even wrote a rough draft of the prologue and first chapter of what would eventually become Felan’s Rescue.  But ultimately, I never committed the time to following through and in my twenties, when there was plenty of time to be had, those pages stayed mostly blank.

Then came law school and limited reading beyond law school assigned readings.  Then came getting my law practice off the ground.  But shortly before the birth of my now two-year-old daughter I had an epiphany.   I knew I wanted to write these, but if I didn’t commit those pages would always remain empty.  I wanted to tell my daughter that I gave it a shot.  That I had something I really wanted to do and I took the time to do it.  So shortly after she was born, I began revisiting Felan’s Rescue.  Over the next seven months I wrote during my lunch at work, sometimes at night, sometimes if I had a light day I’d write during work hours (the beauty of owning your own practice) and I finished a draft of Felan’s Rescue.

Several edits later I had a draft I was very happy with and since then I’ve been querying various agents hoping to find someone as excited by the story as I am.  In the meantime, I’ve been writing a second novel whose first draft is getting closer to being finished by the day.  Maybe the only people that will read these novels will be close to me, but I’m proud of the work I’ve put into them.  I love the characters and love how the pieces of both stories fit.  I hope one day they’ll be on bookshelves somewhere, but until that day I’m happy my daughter inspired me to commit to the writing process and write two novels I’ve intended to write for over a decade.