When did you first start writing?
So long ago. It seems like I've always been writing, even before I was reading, but that can't be true. Let's see. Back when I was eight, maybe nine, I wrote short stories in a journal somebody gave me. Blue-colored, fabric cover. I know, because I kept it, most of the inside anyway, with one tattered cover hanging from the rim, up until about eight years ago. I re-copied everything inside for posterity, but I really didn't need to. I've probably revised just about every tale in there numerous times since I first penned them to paper. One of the stories in that journal was my first chapter book, initially only three short ones, which I later re-wrote into two journals at about the time I was twelve years old, entitled Door to Wonder, which would become the basis for the fantasy series I'm now working on, Raiders of the Dawn. In the early years I had always hand-written everything. I didn't start typing, or using a word-processor, until the time I was in college.
Do you remember the first story you ever read, and the impact it had on you?
I can't remember the first story I read for myself, but the first book that inspired my imagination that was read to me, along with its sequels, was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. At the time, it was such a fascinating, game-changing experience for me that made me realize I could experience another reality, another place, all in my head. It was back when I was in a montessori school in Indiana, when I was seven, maybe. I don't know exactly how old. The dad of one of my classmates was a big fan of Tolkien. I remember being in some play of the Hobbit where this guy was Gandalf and I was one of the dwarves. I read the Hobbit, of course, and then at least started the Lord of the Rings, at an early age, but only after I watched the Rankin/Bass animated feature of the Hobbit.
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