I've been writing for a long time, but I've never dove into fiction before. It's a completely different environment, and I'm not sure I'm write well enough for fiction, or whether my take on it is engaging enough. The Swarm universe ended up calling to me, as my military background and love for history and science fiction nagged at me, I finally broke through the barrier and started writing. It has pretty much taken me over for the past few days, and as much as I've enjoyed the exercise I have to wonder if anyone else might appreciate the result. I've got 12,000 words so far, with a few re-writes, going back to edit parts, and being particularly anal about spelling and grammar as much as my suspect skills at typing will permit.
I'm not a guy who really is interested in writing about sex a lot. It's a vitally important aspect of the human experience, but it just doesn't feel like much of a story vehicle to me. Love, sure. Desire, hell yes. Describing orgasms, well, not so much. I appreciate those who do it well, and there's certainly a lot out there from what I've read here, but I doubt I'm one of them. To me, what I can offer is a little different.
I'm the kind of guy who read Orson Scott Card when I was in college, before I enlisted in the Army, and he changed my life. No, I mean, HE CHANGED MY LIFE. The characters he created taught lessons about problem solving, adaptive cognition, creative chaos and strategic mastery that I will carry with me all my days, just like Bugs Bunny cartoons tricked me into loving opera when I was a kid in elementary school. There are creative masters out there. I might not ever be one of them, but I'm never going to find out unless I give the fruit of my mind to some total stranger, inviting them to dash every hope and dream I might insanely harbor on the rocks of my inadequate capabilities.
So if you're maybe amused by the idea of reading the starting chapters of a story about some misfit and his band of malcontents that starts up the insane idea of an electronic warfare squadron pitted against the mindless, uncaring, existential, interterrestrial threat to humankind, please drop me a line. If you choose to give me some feedback in any form or fashion I will be enormously grateful, and I'm sure readers would benefit as a result.
At the very least, you can abuse me of the notion that spending my time doing this makes any sense, and I can regain the initiative to go mow my overgrown lawn instead.