I’ve been writing stories since I could write (which was before I started school). The earliest work I remember (that my parents saved anyhow) was a horrid poem entitled “Silly Mouse.” It didn’t even rhyme. However, as I matured, my writing (I like to think) improved.

When we were in grade school, my sister and I found a nifty new game in one of those Scholastic-type school magazines. It was called “Plot Luck” and the goal was to write a crazy story as you moved your token along the pathway to the finish line. It provided word prompts at various points, which you had to incorporate into your story. My sister and I used to compete to see who could come up with the silliest story, then see if our parents would laugh at it. We cut the pages out of the magazine and mounted the game on a piece of cardboard so it would last longer. We played for hours at a time, exercising our imaginations and creating tale after tale. I wish I still had that old game, just for nostalgia purposes, but it fell apart long ago.

When I was in middle and high school, I kept up my reading and writing, even getting a short poem published in the local newspaper for a contest. Unfortunately, I was convinced by well-meaning adults that writers didn’t make a good living and encouraged to make a career in the other area in which I excelled: science. I have to say that the paychecks have been satisfactory, but there are times I wonder what my career would have been like if I’d taken the leap and tried to become a full-time writer back in the beginning (or maybe took the writing more seriously and tried harder to get published).

It wasn’t until the mid-90s that I began seriously sending out short stories to magazines and getting paid for my work. I even got a couple of stories compiled into two “Best Of” anthologies, which was heartening. Then I found out about NaNoWriMo, where you sign up to write 50,000 words in 30 days. My best friend dared me to do it, and I dug out an old fan-fiction piece I’d done, changed the names and a bit of the scenario, and had a go at it. I ended up with a finished novel. It’s been through a few revisions, but it’s ready to be published if I can just find a publisher who doesn’t think “caper” stories are dead. Like I said, I should have started publishing sooner, like back when those were more popular.

I now have three historical novels written, along with a (now out-of-print) anthology of short stories that sold tolerably well. One of my alter-egos has five e-books at a small press and the other alter-ego is editing our first science-fiction novel. I’ve published several of my short stories in magazines and anthologies. I’m hoping to attract the attention of a sci-fi agent at sometime soon. And, as with Disney, it all started with a mouse.

Here’s a short snippet from the latest story, which will be featured in our Western Fictioneers anthology this Fall.

Devon Day and the Sweetwater Kid were on the way back from a very successful banking transaction — that is, Chance Knight and his partner Kye Devon were headed to the Inter-Ocean Hotel in Denver. Dev and Sweet had, with their usual panache, vanished like the puff of smoke from a gunshot after the robbery.

The only problem, in Chance’s opinion, was that there was no train service to Nevadaville. Thus, to reach the bank, they’d been forced to utilize this inferior mode of travel — and after most of a day, the stagecoach was starting to wear on Chance. Not to mention the condition of his rear end on the hard seat. Their driver seemed to go out of his way to hit every hole in what passed for a road in the benighted wilderness.

As they stopped in yet another mountain hamlet, he took the opportunity to stretch his legs, leaving his snoring partner inside the stage with their unremarkable canvas bag as his pillow. Maybe a cup of coffee would settle Chance’s stomach. He stepped up to the door of the tiny cafe next to the stage stop, just in time to open it for the Classy Lady inside.

He put on a Suave Face and gave her a little bow as he held the door for her. Fine shoes, the latest fashion in skirts (emerald green velvet with gold trim), topped with a sensible traveling hat over expensively-coiffured auburn locks. The Lady was Classy all right.

Chance had never met a woman who wasn’t lovely. Sometimes you had to look a bit harder, but they all had that certain something. This Lady though … big green eyes, flawless complexion, a delicate chin and a mouth that needed kissing often. He felt a genuine smile stretch his own lips. 

“Good afternoon, ma’am,” he murmured as she passed. She smiled down at him, but said nothing. 

Chance noted with interest that she headed for the very door though which he’d exited. Was their little party to be enlarged by one? One such would certainly make the time pass more quickly.

I saw another blog recently on this topic, and thought I’d add my own slant. Why do writers write? The simple answer, of course, is that we write because we can’t stop.

The more complex answer is that nobody really knows why some of us seem to be born storytellers. We’re the ones who watch the world, not to study it scientifically, but to weave tales out of it. We take the stuff of our lives and spin it out in different colors to amuse and educate our fellow humans.

I started telling stories as soon as I was old enough to realize that I could get the attention of the adults around me in such a fashion. I memorized jokes and riddles and even humorous stories to trot out at the dinner table, or share with friends of my parents. I don’t remember the exact moment I understood that I didn’t have to parrot such things, that I could write my own stories, but once I started, I wasn’t able to stop.

As with most young artists, my first works were copies of what I was reading or watching at the time. Today they call it fan-fiction. It’s a good way to learn how to write (or paint, or sculpt). You can see what works in a story and what doesn’t. The characters and universe are already invented, and if you pay attention, you can see how the original author lays out a plot or creates believable dialogue.

Studying the work of the masters is something all successful writers do, even after they start selling their own work. I read Westerns and mysteries, not only because I enjoy the tales, but also to see how other authors handle their ideas. The only problem with being a writer is that you really notice the mistakes another writer makes, whether it’s shoddy research or poor editing. But usually, you learn a lot by studying the way they write.

I haven’t been able to stop writing, even after all these years, because I never seem to run out of story ideas. Anything that happens to me, anything I see or hear or otherwise experience, can trigger a “what if?” moment. What if that “road rage” temper tantrum from the guy in the car behind me was directed at someone who was actually an alien pretending to be human? What if someone from the past could see a smart phone? What if Chance loves experimenting with exotic food, but Kye is a meat-and-potatoes man? There’s no end.

I have no more idea why I am compelled to tell stories than why one of my best friends is compelled to draw, and another is compelled to study physics. There’s something hard-wired into the human mind that needs to tell and hear stories. We’ve been sitting around swapping tales since we learned to talk – and who’s to say that other primates, or maybe the cetaceans, aren’t storytellers right along with us?