WHEN MY LOVE OF WRITING BEGAN

People have asked me when it was I knew I wanted to write. I had to ponder it for awhile, but I believe the very first spark was in the second grade with my love of words.

I was an awkward kid around that time and hadn’t yet made any friends at my new school. So my teacher—Mrs. Tobin—I’ll never forget her—she spent recesses with me to try and catch me up on my work as I was behind. She told me I could spell the longest word in the English dictionary—antidisestablishmentarianism— and I did! From that point on, not only did I love words, but I believed I could spell anything!

In the third grade every kid in the class was given the opportunity to write a book and actually have it bound and everything! I was so excited! I actually still have it—it’s awful, but kinda cool to look back on.

In the sixth grade I was given my first real report to write, and I wondered why I was the only student in the class that was excited about it. I remember it was on giraffes; I got an A and was so happy about this that I couldn’t wait for the next report. In fact, I believe writing assignments were almost the only thing I ever enjoyed about school.

Unfortunately my love of reading didn’t come until I was about fourteen, when I tried my best to get my mother’s face out of a book so she would pay attention to me. She finally got tired of me pestering her and threw a book at me. She told me to read it, and I was so bored that I did. It was a Harlequin Romance novel, with a man and woman on the cover—probably embracing or some such thing. And my mother hadn’t thrown just any old book at me—it was a juicy one—well, it was for a fourteen-year-old anyway. I was hooked.

Although I wrote many papers in school, and much poetry, it wasn’t until I was thirty-five that I sat down to write my first book. And for some reason, it didn’t occur to me to start with a short story—I went straight for epic novel.

I began searching for a specific kind of book to read, something new that I hadn't read, something with lots of different elements to steal me away that I could get swept up in. But everything I picked up around that time seemed to be missing this thing or that thing, and for some reason, nothing was satisfying. At the same time, I was desperate for some new creative outlet, so, I figured that perhaps I should just write a book myself.

It was July of 2009 when I sat down at my computer, prayed to the Lord to type through my fingers, and then began writing what would become The League of Ascenders, Journey of the Fledglings.