Touching Lives

I remember the excitement of putting my ideas down for the first time and wondering if I really had it in me to finish my first story. Johnny Marsh, Monster Hunter. Yep that was Dream Raiders first title. It started out as a project very much for myself, A hobby, after all it was only going to be about fifteen thousand words long. As I wrote, the characters and the story grew, then ran ahead of me, I was truly unable to catch up at times. It soon became obvious that these characters would demand another story, another book was in the planning stages, long before I had finished the first.

Something happened the day I became a writer. I changed, I had that moment, the moment we all hear about, the moment where you realise that you have just hit a major turning point in your life and you don't ever want to go back. At that stage of my life I was healing, writing it seems was my therapy. Fifteen years have now passed since that day and I had no idea at all about what was in store for me through all that time. I simply thought that I would write my stories, get them published and give up Construction work forever. WRONG!!!

It has been tough, exciting, fun and frustrating, but the one constant that made me push on, was the fact that I was touching lives. Everywhere I go and every chance I get I talk about my work...my real work. I can see the spark light up in peoples eyes when I talk about my books and the journey I'm now on. I can see them searching, looking deep within themselves. Wondering whatever happened to their dreams. Is that you? Do you ever wonder where your dreams went? Perhaps like most people these days they are buried, buried deep under your mortgage. Or more likely, buried under your day job.

I asked myself the other day, how many people have come up to me in the thirty three years I've been in construction, just to say, "The plastering you have done has inspired me to follow my dream."
Yeah Right! But my books are another story all together. I can make a difference, I can touch your very soul with my words. I have been told that Manjucus the soul stealer in Dream Raider is scary, creepy and downright nasty. Some people despise him. I think that is so cool, that a character I made up can evoke strong feelings in my readers. It means I'm touching them. Whether I inspire, or whether I instill mistrust, it means I'm touching lives and my stories will live on, to be discussed well into the future.

To live and work uninspired is a crime. A crime against you very soul.