March 19th 2010 I graduated from College. June 1998 I graduated from High School, so that should give you an idea of the marathon run I had at trying to complete my BA, have a successful marriage (15 years we've been together this fall), fix up the house I grew up in and work to pay for it all.
Unfortunately (and I use that word only because of the recession) I got my degree in Psychology. Health and Human services is not the most well funded area of American life, but one of the most necessary to keep our communities growing happy and healthy, which means I didn't get a job right away after graduating. I had been so focused on getting good grades and finally finishing that I hadn't really thought about trying to find work. In my defense I knew I would have to go to grad school to make a real living after I finished my BA so I was stuck between finding a parttime job for experience, or finding a career and trying to make it work. So after I didn't get into grad school I immediately went to work trying to find a job that would get me experience and help pay the bills (all while studying for finals!).
A year later I've worked three jobs, two of which I still have (one was as a caregiver for my ailing grandmother in law and she has unfortunately now passed on), one of which I think I'll be quitting soon due to the fact that it doesn't really work well with my lifestyle and I have no motivation to try and go further (but still have a great amount of love for my clients). I've volunteered two places and still try to volunteer weekly at the crisis center. And I've written two novels, and edited a third I wrote in 2006.
So where does that leave me now almost a year later? I'm much more marketable, which is why I was able to get into grad school this time, I start in the fall. I have a really good job, an excellent marriage, a comfortable home and three beautiful and loving (Expensive!) bulldogs. I'm also on the verge of a fantastic venture becoming an indie writer.
Until I started seeing myself as an indie writer I felt like I'd sold out. Yes I have the skills and talents that will make me a happy and great mental health worker, but my passions lie in creating worlds and sharing them with others. The idea of self publishing and letting people decide if they'll read my work instead of large publishing houses, has made my life seem much more full.
All that said I thought I might share a little bit about the projects I've been working on.
I wrote The Storm Before My Calm in 1996-97, in six notebooks, during my high school lectures (sorry, but not really). I then self published with iUniverse and was very unhappy with the editing job I had done, and was never really happy with the cover and such. The story has to stay because it was my 1996 story, and I would be betraying my teenager self to change it, however adding an L to the end of Withdrawa(l) might make the story more cohesive when reading. So I'm working on editing it to self publish a 2nd edition. I recently purchased photoshop so I could work on making my own covers as well, since I really don't like the one I have for this book's first edition.
Snowed In: I have decided that some books (the storm.., The Calling series) are more works that really come from my soul, and then others are experiments in genres or style (that doesn't mean I don't love them, I do!). Snowed In developed from my interest in writing something that took place over a short period of time (a weekend) and writing in the third person. So this book takes place in Tahoe during a blizzard at a Bed and Breakfast, while a serial killer is on the loose.
Qualia, the Calling Series Book 1: See previous blog post for chapter 1.
The Noble Son: another experiment in writing in the third person with a romance novel. My wife reads what she calls "junkfood" romance novels, mostly paranormal phenomena have a large part of the plot twists, so I had thought about writing one of these for a while just because it sounded like a lot of fun. Then I was playing Dragon Age 2 and certain characters were of interest to me and I wondered if I could create a story that would make their relationship ok with me, without writing a fanfiction (because Thedas is way more complicated politically than I wish to work with). In the Calling series, part of one of Eden's dreams takes place in a world called Serasia, so I decided to write this novel 1000 years after the events in the dream.
The Irish Killer: Haven't even written down anything but the title. The premise is much darker than anything I've ever written. When I wrote The Storm Before My Calm I didn't know as much about psychology as I do now (don't know everything though hope to continue learning!), so I have always kind of felt that I didn't do the rape scenario respectfully enough in regard to the trauma that is caused by sex crimes. So this book will have to do with a husband who's wife has been brutally attacked, and his way of coping with it is to hunt down sex offenders, and when they seem to be ready to give into their addiction he murders them. Think Dexter, but different. There will be a lot of levels to this so I imagine it will take me more than a week to write, because I want to do it justice. I may write this in tandem with something much more lighthearted to keep my sanity.
Paparazzi (this may be that lighthearted title) will be about a photographer that takes up as a paparazzi to feed his family, even though he hates to idea of the entire thing. He manages to snap a money shot of a famous girl (Lohan, Spears, you get the picture, pun intended) and moral dilemas and love ensue.
There is also the Super Mario Brothers story where Luigi is the hero...but that's just for fun. Also a Morrigan (Dragon Age Origins) fan fiction. So all that and a bulldog calendar made with my pups should keep me quite busy (until grad school starts)!
Thanks for your continued support, means a lot!
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