Biographically speaking

Born a poor dirt farmer in the far reaches of western Kansas, I relied on my imagination more than my brains or brawn (both of which have ever-been in short supply). From an early age, I was making things up as I went along.

My best friends were literally a pack of dogs in my youth. We would pedal around in the countryside (well, I would, the dogs chose running to bicycling), often cruising several miles from our farm. I would fantasize about the days of the ‘cowboys and Indians,’ and on more than one occasion, I found an arrowhead or traces of the Santa Fe trail to fuel my imagination. Otherwise, I had my head in the clouds, literally cloud watching and star gazing for endless hours, wondering what was up there, out there, somewhere…beyond.

An early influencer converting my flights of fancy into written stories was my third grade teacher, Mrs. Day. She had us craft stories that employed word lists we would drum up. One of my first books, crafted in crayon and construction paper, was The Psychedelic Gila Monster.

I continued writing stories in school, even collaboratively writing a series with my best friend in our study hall hours. My stories were something of an amusement for my classmates. I actually sold short stories, handwritten on notebook paper, for a quarter each in my grandmother’s back alley.

At the age of 13, I entered and won a state-wide writing contest. I earned a trophy, press coverage, and the fat head that went with all that. From there, I declared I would be a writer, and eventually I attempted to legitimize the claim by studying creative writing while in college. When that did not immediately pan out, I resorted to teaching English at the post-secondary level.

I continued to write for the next decades, but I never pursued publication. In fact, I never finished anything suitable for publication. Okay, I never finished anything, period. The long form of the novel was too challenging to me. The short form of the short story never gave me room to flex my full story muscles.

So I sat it out, like many, many others, forever thinking of myself as a would-be writer.

The last jolt of inspiration was from a presentation by Alex Sheen that got me writing! I wrote down a pledge to publish a novel. I was inspired, I was motivated, but I had to spend time learning the ropes of indie publishing….and I fell down the research rabbit hole.

Then in 2019 I decided I would get something accomplished. I would fulfill a long-time dream, and by the following March, I had written a draft of a hundred thousand word novel!

With any luck, and with a great deal of diligence, I trust that will be just the start of my writing career.

I’m retiring this biography, my original bio from three years ago, to work up a more writing-relevant/professional one. I like this one enough, I wanted to share it here one more time (where it will eventually be archived). Your feedback on it is always welcome in the comments. Thanks.