Where did you grow up, and how did this influence your writing?
That question is as varied and many-faceted as a rough-cut diamond only not as shiny. The first 10 years were spent relatively stable and then my father died. After that, my life became a loose sparking wire dancing on the ground and just as wickedly dangerous. A succession of abusive stepfathers saw to it that I grew up mean and bitter. I attended nine different High Schools from Seattle, Washington, which was my favorite, to Phoenix and Buckeye, Arizona. The latter was my least favorite but most eventful. Orange County California is where that long crazy trip had begun and where I always considered home. I returned via a week long hitchhiking trip from Seattle and settled there before landing here in Sacramento, CA decades later.
You did ask how it influenced my writing didn't you?
After my father's death, my life was in such an upheaval of constant chaos and conflict that decades later I found the most painful things of that time made for great storytelling; the most glaring and horrific found their way into my stories especially No More Mister Nice Guy. Amidst all that trouble, there were many varied living experiences from hog farms in the Arizona desert to living as a teenager on my own in a rented house or infamous dive hotel in Seattle. I had been told to leave my family's home while I was still a teenager.
I'm a storyteller and found the things I've seen and done could be weaved into interesting tales. The fiction we read and write the good stuff is chock full of truth.
When did you first start writing?
During my teens, I was a voracious reader, and only dabbled in writing a story here and there. I read a lot of classics, Bradbury, Vonnegut and Tolkien, also some books with only cult followings. I didn't start to write full stories until I was in my late thirties. Before that, I remember writing an allegorical tale with the members of my immediate family, my four daughters mostly, cast into fictional roles. I built the characters from unmistakable traits they would all recognize and then sent us out on a comical quest; I updated the story every day on a web page. It took another ten years before I started writing more stories, poems etc. which I sent mostly to family members. About six years ago I began to devote more time to improving my craft and actually sending my tales out where other people could see them.
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