Inspiration, innovation, and escapism

     I grew up immersed in vivid stories told by books, movies, and games. It started as an affinity for drawing my favorite characters and writing fan-fiction. With my family’s suggestion to make my own characters and stories, my imagination went wild. In my teens, I penned an espionage thriller inspired by Clancy novels and the television series 24. Though that manuscript has been lost to the wind, I cannot credit it enough for teaching me the first of many lessons.

     The first project I put my heart in was called Outpost Seven, a gritty tale of viral apocalypse and the chronicles of a thinning band of survivors. The trilogy never received professional revision, but added another dimension to my writing craft. I distributed all three to the ebook publishing website, Smashwords.com between 2012 and 2013.

     In 2015, I attended a creative writing course and authored a short story called Singularity. A starship named Whisper is traversing the deep black when an unfathomable emergency occurs. After five pages and meeting four new characters in that class, I couldn’t say goodbye to them so soon. The next five years were a rough patch of scrapped plots and the loss of my best dog, Winston. Writing became an outlet for my grief as well as a realm to escape (without going overboard on the substances). I earned a new friend named Leo, and he’s turning old and gray now.

     From five years, I was part of the metal group Twisted Theorem, a local Phoenix band. Here I met Mike Battle and Bob Hugo, two amazing friends and talented musicians.

     While I was having trouble plotting the story, I routinely wrote episodes of my protagonists’ trials in between conversations at a call-center from hell. When the pandemic struck and reorganized my living situation and employment circumstances, I found an abundance of time to research, plot, and draft. 

     I always try to keep my stories and universe as constrained to the real world as possible. In developing a storyline around a starship and her crew, I wanted to give it a good reason for being out in deep space. And as the world around us seems to be turning more arid and angrier every day, I found real-world inspiration. Climate extremes and geopolitical tension suggest an eerie and violent future, and famine already deprives millions in underdeveloped nations. As quickly as technology rises, so does the temperature of our Earth and our psyches. And above all else, my starship needed a destination. What better destination than a candidate exoplanet so many lightyears from Earth?

     My rough draft was saturated with too many characters to count, situations for the average reader to keep track of, and an abundance of description that needed to be trimmed down. It was a clunky mess and nearly 200,000 words long when I gave it room to breathe in March 2021.

     The same month that I finished my rough draft, I learned that my bandmate and friend Bob had been diagnosed with cancer. He passed away in July. I promised to dedicate my story in his name, in honor of the life he lived, songs he sang, and love he gave.

     I consulted the first of three editors, Amanda Rutter, whose conceptual feedback refined the ultimate story from my shoddy rough draft. Through her advice and the critiques of two more editors, I revised the manuscript to tell a clearer tale and introduce my cast for the series ahead.

     I write as an outlet for grief, as insight via imagination, and to paint a vivid picture of psychological and societal concerns. What started as a fun hobby developed into a powerful tool that guided me through the death of loved ones and some other stressful events. My promise to Bob inspired me to rise to a new challenge, and see my words in paperback. And I can promise you that I have much more in this world to expand upon.