Writing Genesis
Above, you'll see the dropdown menu to read some of my ancient work. I'm keeping this at the top of the page so you can easily return to this page and select another story if you wish. First, I'll explain the horror contained in the stories there *laugh* After that, I'll go into a few other things not already covered in another section of the this about page that have led toward me writing fiction.
All of these ancient stories are left as they were. That means horrible grammar and spelling errors are sitting there atop the impossible plots and laughable dialogue. Some even drop off, unfinished.
My writing started as an extension of my role-playing game. If you want to go back before the writing, then check out the "Game" section of this page. My first attempts at fiction were backstory for undead NPCs ( Non-player characters ) to give them more flavor. Every one of these has dark sexual overtones, which gives you a glimpse into the state of mind I was in at the time. These include "Denethia", "Aaron", and "Suzanne".
Some may recognize that "Denethia" eventually became "Harvest of Blood" and saw the light of day as a published story.
The transition happens where I moved away from writing backstory and tried writing just fiction. Again, it's fantasy world stuff, and even darker. These include "Martel" and "Thief".
Finally, the rest of the stories are a few years prior to beginning on "Danica", which I consider to be the true start of my writing. They reflect the sexual frustration of a long period in my life that was a dry spell before I met Bailey. Working graveyard shift in a small town and a social life don't mix well - especially when you're a bit of a geek.
Some may recognize "Suprise" was spoofed in LST3K Ep. 02: Small Town Screw.
Now, a few other things connected to my writing.
The first thing, which may surprise some, is that I didn't really start reading until I was 19. I would read when assigned something in class, but I rarely read for pleasure. The only exceptions were monster books from the school library, which were mostly pictures, Marvel comic books, and Horror mags like Fangoria. I had a real thing for the Universal horror monsters, Godzilla, King Kong, and the like. One of my all-time favorite movies is still Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein, because it brought three of the great Universal Monsters together.
My first attempt to write anything was to make a book something like that. A girl I showed it to laughed at me, and I didn't write anything for years. You can see that I had the itch, though - even then.
The story of how I started reading is a little silly. I spent most of my time hanging out with a guy I worked with, because we were about the only ones awake at the same time thanks to working graveyard shift. We drank beer, hung up 4-wheel drive trucks all over creation, and generally got into a lot of trouble.
He had a girlfriend a few years older than him who was smoking hot. I was secretly more than a little infatuated with her, though I obviously did a good job of covering it up. She thought I was the bad influence on him, and so, we didn't really talk that much. She was nice most of the time, but you could see that "Where are you dragging him off to this time?" look in her eyes when we would go out to drink and get stupid.
Why on earth he would want to go drinking with the guys when he had this incredible woman at home who apparently wanted it all the time ( He complained about it. "All she wants to do is fuck!" Huh? ) I'll never know.
It so happened that I was there one day early in the morning after work. We'd stopped by to grab something from his house before he ran me home, because he had to go to his parent's house, and dropping me first would have been counter-productive, as I was on the way to his eventual destination. Lo and behold, he got in a fight with his girlfriend.
There I am caught between a rock and a hard place, because I had no business getting involved, but he was way out of line. Next thing I know, he jumps on his motorcycle and storms off, throwing gravel everywhere, and leaves me stranded a long way from home in the sticks with his crying girlfriend.
Don't start playing the 70s porno music just yet.
She's sitting on the front stoop, sobbing, so what could I do? I sat down next to her and started talking. That was the other reason for my long dry spell. I ended up being every woman's best friend - someone they adored, but would never see in a sexual light. I was, however, very good at it. After a few minutes, she started talking too, and leaned against my shoulder, soaking my sleeve with tears.
I got her calmed down, and tried to explain why he was as wild as he was, and the next thing I know, she's looking at me with an unmistakable expression of "Where did this come from?" She admitted thinking I was the one dragging her man off at all hours of the day and night, only to suddenly realize that I was probably the more mature of the two of us. We sat and talked, moving into the house and the couch eventually as a couple of hours rolled by, until my buddy finally came slinking home and apologized.
I still wonder to this day what might have happened if I'd responded to some of the hand-holding and smiles she was giving me that day. See. I told you not to start the porn music. Nothing happened.
The point is that during those hours of talking, we got to know each other a lot better, and her opinion of me flipped 180 degrees. The next time I was over when she was there, after I had a car of my own, she brought me out a couple of books. One was Stephen King's "The Stand", because we'd talked about how I liked horror monsters when I was a kid, and the other was Weis and Hickman's "Dragon's of Autumn Twilight" - the first of the Dragonlance novels from TSR ( Now part of Wizards of the Coast )
Because she had given them to me, and I was sweet on her, I gave it a shot. I struggled with The Stand, never able to get into it, and begged off with the normal excuse a graveyard shift worker can always get away with - too tired to do anything - when she asked about it. Since, I've discovered that King's writing sets my teeth on edge. I don't know what it is, but I can't stand anything he's written. I've liked several of the movies, but the books... Not so much. I gave up on King and picked up the other novel one night when I was off work and bored.
The next morning, I had finished it, and jumped in the car to drive 45 minutes to a bookstore for the rest of the series, as well as my own copy of Autumn Twilight. A couple of days later, I was again on the road to pick up the "Legends" series.
I haven't really stopped reading since. Anyone who likes my writing should probably thank her, because without her inspiring a love for reading, I'd probably never have rekindled my spark for writing.
Then it's my Baileykins who inspired me to write. See the inspiration section for that. Notice how there's a girl involved at every step of the way? *laugh*
The one truly missing piece of my work is a story I started writing on a Tandy 1000 computer with an old program called "Professional Write". It's one of the few things I was unable to recover from old disks before they deteriorated completely.
"Cloak of the Magi" was to be a story about wizards living in secret in the modern world, forming societies, and keeping watch for people developing magical abilities. The main character was to be a sort of Chosen One who both the light and dark societies of hidden wizards were afraid of. One of these days, I may write that story.
That's all I can think of for now. Hope it was enlightening - or at least a little entertaining. You can find out more by exploring the other sections of the About page.