About the Author
- Inspiration:
- Alorya was inspired by my son's birth and the weeks that followed. From hindsight, I can see that I was just a dad over-reacting to things truly insignificant next to what many other families go through every single day. My son came home from the hospital and everything was fine. When I was at work the next day, I received a phone call saying the doctor had admitted him to the hospital diagnosing him with jaundice. Between "New parent jitters", lack of sleep and stress from work I became distraught. I felt like preparing for the worst. I found my release and therapy through writing.
- Influences:
- I am embarrassed to say that I didn't really find reading to be very fun growing up. Sports and other "outside" activities were my biggest interests as well as sitting down and watching sports on television. It was in late 2003 that I had sat down to read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban due to a suggestion from a dear friend of mine. She and I had finished watching the second movie and I remember mocking the movie and the series as forever preventing "he who must not be named" from returning. It was my favorite mistake. J.K. Rowling writes in a style that brings out the imagination. She also welcomes you into the wizarding world by making the protagonist someone nearly everyone can relate. From there, I kept it simple with stories I already knew. I had seen the Lord of the Rings and Star Wars at the movies, so I just picked up every book relating to both of those brilliant dynasties. JRR Tolkien, Matthew Stover, Dan Brown and Troy Denning (to name a few) really brought to life all that I had seen in the theatre. However, Terry Pratchett is the author who brought me the rest of the way. Discworld is a home away from home when I'm not here, or in a galaxy far far away, or in Middle Earth or at Hogwarts, but it's the only place that an author ever helped me discover. All the other stories were on the silver screen before I ever cracked open the book and it is in that mold that I created Alorya.
- While reading the aforementioned books, I started asking myself if I would do each story the same way. I took the approach from the perspective of the characters in the story and tried to see what I would do with them. I originally wrote this story in the Star Wars galaxy way before my son was even a thought in my mind, but always found myself bound by inconsistencies the story would create. I didn't like how Anakin Skywalker turned to the darkside. I didn't believe that the hero who fell in episode III was the villain in episode IV, even though twenty years had gone by. It didn't make sense to me. I felt the same way with Harry Potter, in that I didn't like the way his character stopped learning anything magical after his fourth year at Hogwarts. Reading "Game of Thrones" by George R. R. Martin was the point where I realized the power of an author. I didn't like what was going on in the book, although I couldn't put it down either. It was really good, but I just wanted things to be different. So, I grabbed some of the ideas I had in my Star Wars books and took control of something that was mine.
- Every morning I wake up and my son smiles back at me from his crib tells me how my worst fears are over. He's here and life is good.
- What's Next? :
- I'm looking for an agent. In the contest, I wasn't supposed to include the prologue and table of contents, so I was eliminated. I'm still happy with the manuscript though and I've added two chapters so far. I'm probably going to add two more before I feel like it's complete.
- I was hoping to build a following on Myspace, Facebook, Friendster and so on. As it turns out, ninety percent of the people who pay attention to me on those sites are real friends. That's what's important though, isn't it. Even when I failed, my true friends were there for me and ready to vote and get their friends to vote. My experiment was a success in ways I didn't foresee. I had hoped for faceless people voting for me and instead I saw that my friends and family were putting their reputations on the line by recommending a book they haven't even read yet. So, I did pretty well.
- The contest would have brought instant stardom to me and while instant stardom is always welcome, it doesn't look like that will be my destiny. So, I'm prepared for Alorya to do less than stellar once it's published. In that preperation, I've been thinking of some ideas for its sequel. I want to build a following on the web and in the book stores so the sequel will be the one that might do well. It won't be as personal as Alorya is (and always will be), but I bet I'll be more polished and better prepared for was comes after writing.