“When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?” Actors see an Oscar performance. or Athletes idolize the Michael Jordans of the sports world. Pilots watch an air show and can’t wait to fly. And writers usually have a specific book or writer who got them hooked. For me, it was reading a random science fiction book as a high school sophomore. Rather than divulge the name, here is the synopsis from Barnes & Noble’s site:
The barbarian armies of a modern-day Khan are bearing down on a weakened America. All that stands between the horde and America’s last citadel is a ragtag army of cowboys led by a tough old woman–and a renegade time traveler who rescued three heroes — George S. Patton, Stonewall Jackson, and Amelia Earhart–from their own deaths so that a doomed nation might survive.
So basically, take science fiction, mix with historical characters, time travel, western themes and a post-apocalyptic America facing off against a New Age barbarian horde, and you have yourself a book.
I read it in a day.
Seriously, I couldn’t put it down. Not because I thought it was the greatest piece of literature this side of Hemmingway. What drew me in and kept me turning the pages was the idea that, as a writer, you could write about anything. Anything – like Stonewall Jackson and Amelia Earhart fighting a war in Arizona. No subject or idea is too far out there. For a guy who spent most of middle and high school day dreaming stories in class and had an active imagination, this was a huge revelation. When I finished the book, I sat back and thought, “If that story can get published, then surely I can come up with something on my own.” That was before knowing the sheer time consumption of crafting a book, finding and agent, finding a publisher and then editing a work. But as trail heads go, it was a good one.
I don’t reach much science fiction, but I guess I should give credit where credit is due. So Stonewall, Patton, Earhart and the new age barbarians, much appreciated.
