How This Journey All Began

As I mentioned in my first book, i never intended to be an author. Not once in my unremarkable life did an inkling of thought enter my mind hinting that I should become an author. Sure, I had plenty of stories floating through my head over the years, especially when I retired for the night. As a youth, my conscious dreaming had me being the heroic baseball  player hitting the game-winning homerun, or the unexpected player off the bench who hits a miraculous filed goal at the last second to win the basketball game.

Those type of dreams soon had company after I read the Lord of the rings. Incredible sports plays soon had competition with the storyline of a man (me) rising up at the last minute to perform some impossible task to save mankind. Those scenarios dominated my quiet time for many years. Even then, there was no desire, no urge to put these imaginations onto paper.

Then came my introduction to the game Ultima Online. The game itself wasn't the impetus. It was just another link in the chain. It did, however, add more fuel to my heroic fire. What the game did for me was provide a mental release. By this time, I am an adult serving Uncle Sam. Somewhere in my military journey, I picked up a habit of doing whatever was necessary (legally) to get the job done. That work ethic carried over into my civilian life after my retirement from the United States Air Force. 

This work ethic came at a cost. I received little sleep during those years as my mind would review the days events. Asking questions like: Did I do everything I planned to do; Did I communicate properly; If I didn't, how could I improve, etc. Once those questions were exhausted, I would think about tomorrow, and how I would plan my day. These mental exercises cost me precious sleep. So, I reverted back to my old ways and began forcing myself to dream about being the hero. To my amazement, it worked. Forcing myself to think about being the hero, while work thoughts continued to intrude, mentally wore me out. I found myself falling asleep faster than I had in years.

How does this equate to being a writer, you may ask? My new found release soon began to wane as work scenarios far outweighed and outnumbered my fantasies. So, I was forced to stretch out my fantasy scenarios. I added more complications, more characters, more possibilities. One scenario, I played out over in my head, constantly refining it. Adding the events leading up to the climax, the great solo battle by my hero, and the aftermath. I became so enthralled with getting it where I want, this dream soon became my obsession, replacing work thoughts. I started losing sleep because of that, which continues to this day.

One day, after logging onto the Excelsior server to play Ultima Online, one of my game friends, whose real life initials are where Evie gets her name, had entered an online story contest. As I read her entry, my mind instantly said, "you have stories, why don't you give it a try?" So, I did. We both didn't win, or even place. That would have been the end of it, until the same person decided to host another writing contest a year later.

I decided to try again, but before I wasted anymore of my time, I went back and read all of the winning entries from last year. The biggest takeaway was their stories were much longer than mine. More story meant more chance to develop what you want to say. So, I attacked this next project with that in mind. I felt my first story wasn't too bad, so I used that as a starter and expanded on it until it was about seven times the original length. When I had friends review it, the most common feedback was , its okay, but you should expand on the characters more.

At this point, I didn't care if I won, placed or showed, I just wanted to write a story someone would say, "not bad." In the middle of developing my characters, I found out the contest would not happen. At this point, I was hooked, determined to finish the storyline. It took five years (I still worked - A lot!) when I finally put the 'pen' down. Not because I was satisfied, but because I grew tired and had another goal I wanted to try. I rushed my ending, glad to put this story behind me.

My new goal was to see if I could write a story from a woman's perspective. A daunting challenge I was sure I'd fail at, but I wanted to try. About this time, I purchased Pro Writing Aid software to help my writing. I will honestly tell you now, this book would never see the light of day without its help. As my 2nd story progressed, I soon realized I left too many holes in book one that needed to be filled to make certain situations in book two to flow seamlessly. So, after a year working on two, I returned to book one. 

Over the next five years, I went back and forth between both stories, adding and refining as needed. Again, thanks to Pro Writing Aid. I finally felt confident to share these stories with others. Instead of hearing "it's nice" or never hearing back at all, which I deemed to be the true feedback, I started to hear, "it's really good." Then one fateful day I got the first "You need to publish this." My thought was "Ya right!" But, when I received a 2nd, 3rd and a 4th suggestion to publish this, I finally gave in. And here we are. If you find the stories, droll, boring or just plain bad, blame them. :]

W. F. Porter