And so it begins...

About twenty years ago I started thinking about trying to write a book. I was a voracious fantasy and science fiction reader all through my teen years and was looking for a creative outlet more than my weekly Dungeons and Dragons game. I decided then, if I were to write something, I should try and start small. So, I wrote a few short stories and sent them out to be published.

Most of them were not and I got the first taste of rejection that most authors must learn to contend with. But one of my stories, Misdirection, was published by a small sci-fi / fantasy magazine called Tales of the Talisman. I was paid $10 for my efforts --I still have the uncashed check. But this taught me that it was possible and so I started thinking of ideas.

Eventually, I settled on the idea of a story where angels and demons were not what they were. At first this was a science fiction setting but then I switched to fantasy. I wrote out plot outlines, backstory and eventually after more than a year of thinking about started to write.

At my fencing club was a fellow student who had written a New York Times bestseller. He agreed to look at the first few chapters. I was heartbroken when I saw that he bled red all over the pages with corrections. When we spoke, he told me he had good news and bad news. I asked for the bad and he told me: "It's terrible." But the good news was less disheartening. He said I was making all of the mistakes that new authors make, that they were easy to correct, and that (in his words) I knew how to "push words around" well.

I continued on and started writing The Rose Thief in earnest. I had the core idea of many of the events that you see in the book but, as I read and re-read, I knew something was not clicking. The story was not good.

What I needed was a protagonist. I switched to a first-person view and invented Ridalfo Cappo, I was heavily into fencing as a middle-aged man at the time. Too old to seriously compete, Ridalfo became the fencing prodigy that I would never be.

This worked. I wrote the first chapter from his point of view and everything started to click. I wrote mostly on lunch breaks. At my workplace I had friendly readers who would look forward to new chapters and give me useful advice. The book began to flow out and I told the story I had intended. I was able to re-use some writing from before but most of it was new.

It was not long enough to be a novel. Rather than publish it, I decided that I needed to expand on the idea and so I worked out a larger story and spent time revamping what I wrote to serve this larger tale.

It took me over a year to write, but I will forever be proud that I set out to write a novel and did so. I was proud of what I wrote. I thought it was as good as some books I've read. Of course, it would be published.

Little did I know how brutal book publication was. I had sent the manuscript to several agents and was rejected roundly. My successful author friend told me to stick with it, that this was normal, and to keep writing. But the reality of publication hit me hard. He told me to start writing the next book, but I could not. What if I wasted another year and that one was rejected?

The Rose Thief lay dormant for around twenty years. I would share it with friends and family.

But publication has changed. Self-publication is a realistic path for an author now. And I picked up the manuscript and spent many hours fixing problems, refining, and ultimately getting it in shape to be self-published. I hired an artist online who created a lovely cover for me. I pushed and prodded the manuscript into the write print-paperback and eBook formats. And last night, the night before writing this, I submitted to Kindle Direct Publishing.

I have no idea how this will go. I do not think that this will somehow be a massive success. But I spent a year of my life writing a story that I intended others to read, and it is my sincere hope that out there some people will take some of their own time and, after reading, will be happy they did so.

Fingers crossed....