From my journal: On genre writing

30 JULY 2007

Monday

    ■ From my journal:

        “There may come a time in every writer's life when he realizes he's been trying to write in the wrong genre.

“Once again, it all comes down to passion—what am I passionate about? What do I like to watch, read, immerse myself in?

“As I've looked at my past or gone through my autobiography blog, I've come to realize that historicals are not for me, much as I would love to write them. For one thing, I hated history in school. It was a boring subject filled with dates, and people I really didn't care about.

“So why did I think I could write historical fiction? Because certain aspects of ancient history fascinated me, and I thought interesting stories that might be told during certain periods of time.

“However, that isn't really where my passion and interests lie. Rather, I've rediscovered that it's heroic fantasy and high adventure that I enjoy—the works of H Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs in particular (emulating them, I wrote The Hidden City of A-Ten,  Return to A-Ten, and Zorab) and also the science fiction of Robert A Heinlein.

“Why did I slowly move away from these? What caused the shift in my interests? When?

“One reason I know is that when I became a Christian, some well-meaning but misguided Christians said I should throw away anything I'd created before becoming a Christian because all that stuff was ‘of the devil’.

“Not knowing any better at the time, I blindly did as they suggested—got rid of two novels and several binders of artwork; I've regretted it ever since.Fortunately, I kept my songs.

“Another reason is that they told me that fantasy has no place in a Christian’s life. So, I gradually left my fantasy worlds behind. To be replaced by what?—an emptiness I couldn't define, and a pressure to pursue ‘Christian’ subjects that didn't really interest me.

“As I rebelled against my parents sending me to Sunday school when I was fifteen, so I rebelled against the religiosity of Christianity after ten years.

“For several years, I wandered in a creative void which I endeavored to fill for several years with erotic stories and new age music reviews.

“Then, one day, a woman I met in a dry-cleaning business next to work came to see me and asked if I'd be interested in joining a Dungeons & Dragons® group.

“Would I!? You couldn't get me there fast enough!

“Enthralled once again by fantasy, I soon began writing some D&D adventures, not necessarily for publication, but for the fun of playing them with the group—which I did.

“Out of these adventures, one of my characters began to grow on me—Sheel Chandra, who eventually appeared in four erotic short stories as ‘Solomon Magus’.

“Soon after that, I began creating his world, Arabah, and then I realized I had the beginnings of a novel and, perhaps, a series of novels.

“For the 3-day novel competition, I wrote the embryonic version, Solomon Magus, which I thereafter worked on and finally published in 2006 as Wizard of Arabah.

“In order to describe the book, I used the term ‘historical fantasy’ simply because, although a fantasy, it did have some historical elements.

      “That was a book which, although it was hard work, proved to be a lot of fun to write."

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As of this writing (2024), there are now three books in The Scrolls of Solomon Magus series—Wizard of Vasuda, Princess of Vasuda, and Warrior Maid of Vasuda [all available on Amazon] and I'm currently working on a fourth.