I can’t remember a time
in my last thirty years when I didn’t write. Originally, this was bad poetry
and prose, which is similar to how many young people begin to write.
Fortunately, that ended, and now every single page I once wrote is shredded.
Frankly, that was as cathartic as writing my feelings. I must say they’re both
good things.
Eventually, my writing
became stories of travel and hiking as well as introspective understanding of
who I was. Since that was too personal to sell, I chose to write fiction,
embracing my post-literary interests of the paranormal, travel, baseball, and American
culture to create something I could be proud of. Now that I have put my
finishing touches on this, my first book, it feels incredible to be able to
look back on the things that have gotten me to this place where I can publish
my first book.
First and foremost is
the love and support of family and friends. Whether they be the family I’ve
found along the way (my wonderful wife, Heather) or my parents + sister and the
rest of my extended family (especially my Gram, who let me build forts in her
apartment as well as to play with my Star Wars figures at her place every weekend
of my youth – rest in peace), I’ve always been able to be lost in other worlds
of daydreams and fantasy.
Quite simply, from an
early age, I was encouraged and allowed to be imaginative. This led me to Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, V, Close
Encounters of the Third Kind, Independence Day, Altered States, Contact, The
Mummy (the Brendan Fraser one), Creature Double Feature, Ancient Aliens, The Conjuring,
A Haunting, Signs, Monsters and Mysteries in America, Jaws, and a lot of
other science fiction / aliens / ghost stuff as well as great action movies
like Die Hard and the Asian cinema of
John Woo and Chow Yun Fat. This is not to forget the myriad of Stallone,
Schwarzenegger, and Norris action movies in my formative years (not to mention
one too many viewings of the original Red
Dawn).
In addition, music is a
big part of who I am as a writer and person. From my earliest days with Billy
Joel to Iron Maiden to Neutral Milk Hotel to the Polyphonic Spree to the Misfits
to Phish to Jack Johnson to Okkervil River to Jay Z to The Hold Steady to
Slayer, songs have always inspired me to sing along and to move on through. My
mp3 player ranges from cheesy pop songs by Taylor Swift to metal music by King
Diamond. There’s a time and place for everything, and frankly, I wouldn’t want
to live in a world without music of every genre. Simply stated, I could have
never written this book with bad music or silence. For this, I do name check
songs, bands, and literary things to get other people interested in them as
well. Support your favorite artists.
Along the way, I have
also had many great teachers who allowed me to grow as a writer, teacher, and
person with their style and willingness to take on my honors contracts and
personal discussions (Ron Borkert, Bill Harst, Dave Leight, Susan Hartman, and Eric
Wolf come to mind). With them, I was able to do many great projects and learn
so much more than I would have if I didn’t participate in class actively.
Because of them and my parents, I was shown the value of education. While I didn’t
always understand or appreciate education or the do this / do that approach to
things, I eventually did embrace it, and I was able to teach myself by learning
to observe what others did and by absorbing information and education
experience because of it. In addition, I was supported by many colleagues and
peers in the educational world to be allowed to educate other people to the
value of writing. I can’t begin to state what that means to me. Teaching and
being taught are great things. Embrace knowledge in all that you do.
In an ideal world, I would
list lots of names, and they would be definitive with regard to who has helped
me along the way. However, I know that I’ll forget people, so rather than try
to be all-inclusive here, I’ll thank all of my friends from those who were
there with me during the awkward and lonely high school years, the wild ride of
the Loft days, my time in the Air Force, the England experience, the
post-England college time (which began twenty years before the day this book
was originally released), and the last fifteen years of my life, which have
been involved in being an educator, hiking, traveling, and living life while
listening to great music, experiencing movies, reading books, and embracing an
America that I almost left.
For all of the mistakes
I’ve made, the dumb things I’ve done, and the bad choices I’ve made along the
way, my family and friends have stuck with me to get to this place. I
appreciate that. I must also say that I still can’t believe that I have a wife
who would embrace my eccentricity and rough around the edges nature to still be
here for me, nearly 9 years after our first memorable date. Like Lou Gehrig, I’m
the luckiest man of the face of the earth to have someone who’ll let a major
undertaking like this book series happen.
Also, in whatever came
my way, I always found great people to influence and inspire me. One of those
people was MaryAnn Schaefer, who edited this book and provided writing advice
to me. I am very very grateful to her for that. I’m also very thankful that she
allowed me to have a couple of Air Force / England Thanksgivings with her, her
husband Bill, and her daughters Sky and Nicki all those years ago. I can’t begin
to explain what they meant to a young guy 3,000 miles from home on the holidays.
In this writing
endeavor, many of you will choose to help me either by advertising or buying
this book. You will read my works and provide constructive criticism. You will
inspire me while I keep working on the Blackrock Canyon series, which is well
over 500 pages at this point in four different books. I think it has a couple
thousand to go, but that’s just me. THANK YOU!!!!
I look forward to
entertaining you along the way. Hopefully, I’ll even inspire some of you to
embrace your own creativity, which would be awesome to see all of the Dylans
and Lydias of the world to take a keyboard to bang out their stories. The world
is your oyster. Do what you have to do. It’s go time. Where would we be without
writing or the oral tradition or petroglyphs?
Thanks for reading and
supporting my art. Dan.
You guys and gals are
awesome. Really.
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