Welcome!
Thanks for visiting my new (and very first) blog. I’m going to use this as a working space to discuss my writing progress, character concepts and designs, and how I tackle worldbuilding. But before we get too much into all of that, I’d like to take a few paragraphs to introduce myself so you at least have an idea where I am coming from.
My day job is as an IT Director at a regional transportation and logistics company, supporting over 40 locations spread-out over the southeast United States. I’ve also worked as a Senior Software Consultant in a disparate set of industries and a software developer writing programs for a Department of Defense contractor. Programming languages are my jam – being able to come up with unique solutions to complex business problems using a language with a well defined grammar is its own little artform. I am married to a beautiful, talented woman, and we have two awesome children I affectionately refer to as Tasmanian devils.
I’ve always been drawn to science fiction and fantasy. My love for fantasy started early, when my grandmother got a NES and I spent hours romping around in Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda. During middle and high school, I was a voracious reader of science fiction, specifically the Star Wars Expanded Universe (I may still be bitter that it’s no longer cannon). College didn’t give me a ton of time for extracurricular reading, but when the Lord of the Rings movies came out, I tore through Tolkien’s works in just a couple of weeks. Some work travel allowed me to consume quite a few more series, there’s still a couple I need to make time to actually go back and finish the last book or two (looking at you, Wheel of Time).
In the midst of college and all this fantasy reading, I also discovered a love for tabletop RPGs. The group I play with started with Dungeons and Dragons, but we’ve moved between several different systems and even now we’re playtesting an entirely new game using dice and cards – I’m not going to plug it too hard here right now, but I’ll write more about it later as we’ve spent the better part of the last few years playing it. Tabletop RPGs really got me into creating characters and worlds – I’ve actually only played maybe 7 or 8 actual Dungeons and Dragons characters, but I’ve created dozens more with intricate backstories and ambitions. And while our group typically starts with a standard module for whatever system we’re playing, our games always evolve into some sort of homebrew campaign in a unique world, or at least a unique area of an existing world, where we have all the creative license. As much as I love playing characters, leading the games lets me flex more of my creative muscles.
Over the past few years, I’ve started and stopped several stories with various characters. Most of the time, I realize I’m just retelling a story, albeit with some differences, that’s already been told before. The current story I’m working on started coming to me over three years ago. It actually started as an idea for a video game system – an intricate magic system using runes and magic circles where you would create your own magic spells by researching runes and incorporating them into magic circles. The more I thought about it, the more I started to think of the characters that would be in the game, and that slowly began to materialize into a story. I still haven’t completely abandoned the game idea, but the characters, stories, and world that started floating around in my mind demanded to be put down on paper rather than just living in my imagination.
The first few chapters of the book came together about three years ago. That same year, my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and my family’s life and time went to making sure she got the care and attention she needed to overcome the diagnosis. The book obviously went on hold, but the stories and characters never left my head. When the Covid-19 lockdowns started and I was spending more time at home, I decided to dust off the story and finish getting it down into words so it would be out of my head and so that I could share the story and hopefully let others get some enjoyment out of these characters that had become so much a part of my life. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve worked and reworked certain scenes over in my head as I’m nodding off to sleep, trying to get them just right so everything feels natural and in character.
In future blog posts, I’ll examine how I go about the character creation process, the wacky way I tackle worldbuilding, and why I think certain scenes just won’t get out of my head. I hope you enjoy the ride as much as I do.