What if?

I had the chance to be a visiting author at a middle school recently. To prepare for the visit, I asked the teachers what things they would like me to cover. Basically, it was the writing process, the importance of edits and rewrites, and what else authors have to do.

I put together a PowerPoint presentation that addressed all sorts of different elements. One question I covered was "where do authors get their ideas from?"

Here is what I did to help the students understand one way I get my ideas. Actually, it’s the main way I get them. It is: "what if?"

I told them, for example, "What if the sky was purple?" or "What if the school was attacked by zombie bunnies? (Sounds like something David J. West could turn into quite the amazing book, eh?) From there, I had them write their own "what if" statement. I was quite impressed on the different ideas students came up with. I joked that if any of them wrote a best seller based on their "what if" statement, I wanted a mention in their book.

I explained there are many different ways of writing. I used the example of "pantser" (writing on the seat of your pants) vs. plotter (doing an outline). I, personally, am a combo of both. When asked how I write, this is the best way I could describe it: The first thing I do is create the characters in my head. I use personality traits of different people I know (even myself) and try to create a unique individual. From there, I create a basic outline of a story—the major plot points and such. Then, when I write, I put these characters into the setting and see what happens. Often they don't do what I expect, based on their character, . . .but somehow, it works.

When it came to demonstrate the importance of edits and rewrites, I showed them several pictures and had them write down the issue.

Here they are:

As you can see, some are fairly obvious, and some are a little more hard to explain. The picture of Pizza Hut, for example, got a few of the students hung up. They didn't see anything wrong with it. For me, I explained the concept of redundancy. As a reader, I get frustrated with an author who beats me over the head with the same thing throughout the book.


Lastly, I left time for questions and answers. Any ideas what the number one question I was asked?


It was: "How old are you?"

Under the influence

Star Wars.

That was it.

I was seven years old when Star Wars (now known as Episode IV) came out. Please, oh please, don't do the math to figure out how old that makes me.

I was simply blown away by Star Wars. It opened my imagination to ways I didn't think were possible--in a chemical free way. Here was a world with interesting characters, action, adventure, good, evil and most of all, great pacing and storytelling.

The movie inspired what types of books I read, TV shows I watched, and even music I listened to. All these years later, I still find myself drawn to sci-fi, and to some point, fantasy. (Yes, they are two different genres)

I, too, read Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Bradbury. They were certainly influential.

However, I'd say the inspiration I draw from now, both good and bad, are from more recent books I've read.

Here are a list of authors I've enjoyed / learned from:

(I'm sure this will raise a few eyebrows--but everyone is entitled to their opinion)



Greg Keyes His book, The Briar King, is an all time favorite. He has an amazing talent for developing characters. Plus, his pacing is outstanding. I'd like to think my writing style is the most like his.

Michael A. Stackpole His four part series, The DragonCrown War, is brilliant. He's unpredictable--something I've "borrowed".

Gerald N. Lund The Work and the Glory series is a masterpiece of historical fiction. Excellent character development.

Dan Brown Say what you will about his subject matter, but the man knows how to keep you glued to a book.

L. Ron Hubbard I'm proud to say I really enjoyed his novel Battlefield Earth. It's epic. It's smart. It's riveting. It's a shame that the movie was soooooooooo bad, and not even close to the book, that it's given the title a bad name.

Robert Jordan If only the rest of The Wheel Of Time books were as good as the first one in the series. Rest his soul, Jordon was one of the few people in the world that could take 80 pages to describe someone walking across a room. While his books are amazing, the pacing is too slow for my taste.

J. K. Rowling Again, outstanding imagination--the ability to create a unique world using somewhat familiar, therefore relatable, elements. Sadly, I think the Harry Potter series peaked with the 4th book. Books 6 and especially 7 seemed to be long for the sake of being long with a lot of back story and filler.

(Send hate mail to Dan Harrington. He'll make sure I get it)




Here's the best part: now that I've gotten involved in the writing community, I get to draw from all sorts of great authors. Don't be surprised in a few years when you see the names Young, West, Harrington, Cole, Pinkston and Mueller (and maybe even Morgan) appear on lists like these.

On manly writing

I was asked to give a presentation in front of several of my fellow managers about diversity. To set the scene: there were about twenty people in the room, with a mixture of men and women, and all sorts of ethnic backgrounds.

The first thing I said was, "I am a minority." Understand this is coming from a white male. The reactions varied from shock, disbelief, skepticism and confusion. In addition, I thought one of the people in the room was going to throw something at me.

I followed up by saying, "I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormons."

The atmosphere in the room eased up a bit, some people even smiling. And then I hit them up with this question, "All right, now how many of you are wondering how many wives I have?"

There was scattered laughter and a few nodding heads.

My response? "Well, I do believe most, if not all of you, have pre-judged me based on my gender, race and religion."

What point was I trying to make? That it is human nature to connect attributes or make assumptions about people based on their overall classification.

In developing my career as a writer, I've found that male authors seem to be in the minority. Maybe it's just my imagination. Also, it seems that if you are a male writer, it's almost expected to be more rough and, well, manly, in your writing. And there is some truth in that.

I found the response I got from The Hidden Sun was quite interesting. Women loved the romantic elements, as well as the character development. The guys? Well, they liked the action sequences and the twists and turns. Me? I'll have to admit, it was more fun to write the action parts. In fact, the follow up book, The Waxing Moon, is much more of an adventure story, though there are still plenty of interesting characters and yes, there is romance.

Have I found it more difficult to be a male author versus being a female author? Well, I can't say, since I've never been a female author. Is there is stigma when it comes to being a male author? Possibly.

The simple truth is that men and women are different. I've uncovered this highly scientific diagram to prove my point:

Need more proof? After a nine year study by some super top secret government agency (at a cost of 17.3 Billion dollars to the tax payers), the following study was released about shopping habits of men vs women:

So, are there different expectations for male writers versus their female counterparts? I'll have to go with "yes" on that one.

When I was first shopping The Hidden Sun, I got a response back telling me that if I were to add some sex scenes, swearing and more violence, they would be interested. I wonder what would have happened if I had submitted the same story under the fictitious name "Suzie Unicorn". . .

Who says daydreaming is a bad thing?

Growing up, I would daydream--a lot. Sitting in class, I'd look out the window and see something that would spark my imagination and off I would go on some adventure. There is probably some sort of medical term for that now. And it would have to be an acronym. The medical people love their abbreviations and acronyms. I guess I would be diagnosed with having DREAM syndrome (because the word "syndrome" makes it sound really official). What would DREAM stand for? Well, let's see. How about Dysfunctional Recognition Edification Activity Murkiness. Or perhaps Dude Redirects Every Attention Much.  Maybe even Doesn't Really Eat Apple Mush.

Regardless, I loved to make up adventures. The first real attempt to do so was in the 4th grade where I wrote a short story about how I was captured by aliens (and so were my friends) and I went about saving them. My real life friends liked the story so much, we went on to write twelve more short stories together which we titled, The Chronicles of Space Adventure (or COSA if a medical person got a hold of the title).

However, I ran into a bit of a snag when it came to writing. I have a mild form of dyslexia. One way it manifests itself is in spelling, which was (and is) a mystery to me. And for better or worse, English classes often included spelling tests as part of their grading system, so you can only imagine what kind of grades I earned.

It wasn't until I took a required creative writing class in college my sophomore year that I even thought I had the ability to use my imagination to create written stories. After being told by my several of English teachers that I really should pursue something in the science fields, I actually had a teacher that saw something else in me. In our final project was to re-write a well known short story of our choice from a different point of view. I chose The Lottery. When I got my version returned to me, it had a perfect score--something the teach rarely awarded students (note: spell check is your friend--something I didn't have in High School). He told me I had a gift. It's amazing how one person can make such a difference in your life.

As for my published novel, The Hidden Sun, it is the result of five years of writing in-between all the various demands on my time. And of course, while editing it, I got the idea for the second book, The Waxing Moon, which is in its final editing stages now. What does that mean? Well, of course that I've started on my third book.

To echo my fellow man cave authors, writing is a boat load of hard work. It takes dedication and patience. It requires putting on a thick skin when people criticize your work, while also listening to your heart of when to heed people's advice or stay true to your vision of your story.

I can't say how honored I am to be part of the man cave group. These men are extremely talented.

It's going to be a fun ride.