Back in the late 1960’s in Tucson, Arizona, I was an art major, but I was getting better grades in English and writing classes than I was in my visual arts classes! But for some reason, I didn’t ‘get the message’ one may say. In fact, beyond a series of articles on military collectibles I wrote for a local antique collectors newspaper, I’d hardly written anything at all. It wasn’t until after my wife passed away, and I retired from our antiques business, that I suddenly got the urge to write. Stephen King, in his novel It describes this…event, as being like the starting up of a bulldozer in one’s head. It’s not a pretty machine, he said, but it’s built to knock things down. I felt that bulldozer start in my head at that time, and it’s still running strong—and still knocking things down. It’s an appropriate image for a series written in the Steampunk/Fantasy genre.
During the time my stories were waiting to be born, I read. I read voraciously. I’ve always liked to read. The authors I read the most in high school and college wrote science fiction, fantasy, and horror stories—Steampunk didn’t exist then as an actual word. I sought out writers who could make me ‘see’ what they were seeing; men and women like Andre Norton, Ray Bradbury, Clifford Simak, Richard Matheson, and Howard Phillips Lovecraft, who’s stories are best read in the light of day, and of course, two masters of a slightly later period, Stephen King and Dean Koontz. There are others as well, but these names spring foremost to my mind. My ‘inner artist’ wants to actually be able to see, touch, and smell the space ship, or the basement of the haunted house. Because of this, I have strived to make my work visual; when someone reads one of my books, I want a movie playing in their heads.