How did I get here?

Return of the Jedi. What? In third grade I watched Return of the Jedi countless times and thought, "There's more to this story." Lives continue, at least for those characters celebrating on the forest moon of Endor while Anakin Skywalker's funeral pyre burns out (I hope Luke was careful about the surrounding trees, wind currents, etc.) I thought up a third grade title for an Episode VII - Only Leia Left. In five or fewer paragraphs, I introduced a brand new villain, had him crash the Ewok celebration and murder Luke, Han Solo, Lando, extras, Ewoks, etc. Morbid. It didn't go much farther than saying that Princess Leia had survived and vowed revenge. The spark was lit.


In high school, I tried to dabble in fan-fiction. I found myself heavily into Star Trek: The Next Generation. I was reading consistently for pleasure for the first time in my life as I found that four or so TNG novels were published each year. Not sure why, but I felt I could come up with a convincing plot line. I tried unsuccessfully, mostly because I always wanted to put a big spin on things. Some future point with promotions and new characters, elaborate deaths of main characters, new ships - but no real story.


Freshman at URI take Writing 101, which touches on a number of styles. I focused on fantasy. I adapted a dream I'd had into a western shoot 'em up for an A and praise from the professor. I expanded on that with a descriptive view of the future, using some of the platitudes stated in TNG - a hopefulness for the good of mankind, blah, blah, blah. I started it with a detailed description of the bridge of the Enterprise-D and its crew. Again, it won praise and encouragement from the professor. That was the spring of 1996 and it would be two years before that encouragement manifested itself.


On a February morning in 1998 I woke up with details in my head. I'd had a dream the night before and it was so clear in my head - every detail, meals, feelings, consequences - I simply had to quickly jot down an outline. Over the next few weeks, I expanded that outline and those details into a novella. Alas, it was set up as more fan-fiction - this time as the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer starring Sarah Michelle Gellar. I thought it had promise as a rough start, but needed serious expansion and maturity of writing (it was steeped in cliche). More signs of extremely slow process.


In 2002, I heard rumbles that a long-time friend of mine was writing a book. I was shocked and intrigued.


By contrast, I was a new father and suffering horribly through the worst seven months of my professional life. I'd left a job in Boston I really liked and made the move based on commute time. It was absolutely the wrong thing to do.


Fast-forward to July 4, 2003. I remember it as the hottest summer on record and I was at a party just off the parade route in the Independence Day hot bed of Bristol, RI. I sat with this same friend and his girlfriend. I have no idea how it came up, but she told me she was helping edit - in terms of grammar, etc.


"I want to write a book," I told her and I thought about it alot in the following weeks. I developed a character and a general direction and started writing. I wasn't really sure where I was going, but the words sprang out fast at first. At 7,000 words and 30 pages I hit a block. Like any brand new amateur, I got frustrated and thought I'd said all I could.


A year later I pulled out my Buffy short story and set to work renovating it to include original characters. Instead of writing prose, I composed an extensive and detailed outline. Ultimately, I put this aside as well. My second child and only son was born, I accepted a great new job and moved again, I bought a house.


In the summer of 2005, my reading shifted focuses. I had been, for two years previous, reading almost exclusively political biographies - Richard Nixon, JFK, RFK, FDR, Churchill. I also digested the best non-fiction book of all time during this time, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Now, fueled by an interview I heard on the radio with Harlan Coben, I moved to fiction. I wanted to try Coben, but other than him, had no idea what I like and what I should look for. I took recommendations from friends which led me to Bernard Cornwell, Dan Brown and Douglas Preston.


Something Harlan Coben said stuck with me. He comes up with ideas by asking questions. I let that perculate.


By listening to audio books on my long commute, I literally stumbled on the likes of Daniel Silva, Brian Haig, Nelson DeMille and Barry Eisler - all of whom are now my favorites. I swallowed James Patterson's Alex Cross series, Dean Koontz, Brad Meltzer, Joseph Finder, Vince Flynn, Frank Delaney, James Rollins, Steve Berry.


Finally, in May of 2006, I got my questions in place. On June 8 I wrote my first words of what would become, 2 years and 80,000 words later, my first completed novel.