I believe fiction authors are born to tell stories. When I
was a child, I was, and still am, a voracious reader, not only of genre
fiction, but much else besides. As a youngster, I liked to make up stories in
my head and act them out. I'd embarrass my parents by sword fighting or talking
to myself while walking along besides them. I especially enjoyed the Oz books,
sequels to The Wizard of Oz, and books about pirates and strange magical lands.
I also enjoyed comic books. My favorites were Captain Marvel and some of the
Disney characters. Around the age of twelve, I discovered the pulp magazines
which featured science fiction, fantasy and horror. I also enjoyed such movies
as The House of Frankenstein and the few science fiction films available in
those days. .
I was not a very good student from the third grade up,
although I did enjoy certain subjects such as math and science. English was not
my best subject by far. My problem was that I was bored most of the time. What
the teachers were teaching, I had read about long before attending the classes.
In high school, I cut school quite often and had roaring battles with my
mother.
After I graduated, for a short while, I worked in the
printing trade because I thought I would be close to printed matter. I went
from job to job for a while. After I met my wife to be, she encouraged me to go
to electronics school to learn TV repair which was a trade that paid well. I
finished the school in the summer, which was the slow season for TV repairs. As
a result I found employment as tester in a factory that manufactured electronic
devices.
At the age of 21, I was drafted into the army during the
Korean War, which ended two weeks after I reported for duty. Because of my
electronic schooling, I was placed in the Signal Corp to work in microwave
communication. Sometime after leaving the army, I answered an ad by IBM to
become a field engineer in the SAGE defense system.
When IBM lost the maintenance contract, a great opportunity
opened up for me. I interviewed for a technical writer's position at one of IBM's
research and development facilities. Finally I was doing something I really
enjoyed – writing – even if it was only maintenance and customer manuals. I
learned a lot as a technical writer, about writing and other things. For one
thing, I learned to become thick-skinned as far as criticism goes. In tech writing, many people have a say in
your writing, engineers, marketing personel, your peers, quality control
people, etc.
While I was still working, I never lost my desire to write
fiction. As a result, I took a correspondence course in fiction writing. I'm
glad I did. It gave me the basic knowledge I needed. I began by writing short
stories with little success as far as getting them published. With four
children and a full time job, I had little time nor a quiet place to write.
Sometimes I would write during my lunch hour.
My chance came after I retired. Now I had the time, a
converted recreation room to use as an office and a home computer. At first a
few of my short stories were published in electronic magazines (e-zines). Very
seldom was I paid for these. However, they acted as portfolio that I could
refer to when submitting my novels to a publisher. Finally, a POD and e-book
publisher picked up a science fiction novel I had written. The novel did not
sell well mainly due to the publisher's lack of distribution. The only place it
could be bought was on the publisher's own web site. I and this publisher soon
parted ways. I found another POD publisher, but the same thing occurred.
Finally, I struck gold. My work was published by a strictly
E-book publisher, who distributed my novels to all of the popular online
booksellers such as Amazon, Fictionwise, etc. Soon my novels brought in royalties,
not much at first, but the more novels I wrote, the more I sold. Not that I've
ever had a best seller or anything close. But as a retired person, it is a
source of extra income. It also gives me a few extra deductions on my income
tax.
Of course, I soon found that just getting published is not
the only thing involved with being an author. You must do research, promote
your book, keep track of your sales, deal with problems with publishers, avoid
getting writer's block, fight E-book piracy and write blogs like this one.
Nonetheless, I love writing science fiction and fantasy. I even enjoy writing
short articles such as his one. I love the idea that people are receiving
pleasure from what I write.
