When I was young, I had two dreams; of castles in the clouds, and making a difference in the world.
And then I met a girl. A young man’s attention changes at such times, and mine did. I lost focus of my earlier dreams as I fixed my sights on her and the prospect of a new life together.
Time passed and life happened. Linda and I have been married for coming up on 18 years, now. We share a daughter, Ashlei, 16, a son, Ean, 10, and two purebred miniature Dachshunds, Dane and McKenzie.
As for my professional career, I let my dreams get pushed aside by the minutiae of living. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up until I was 37 when I scammed my way into a position as a Technical Writer with nothing but natural talent and the ability to interpret jargon from Engineers and Programmers for a non-technical audience. (That, and I can write in the active voice.)
It is three years later and I’m still here writing manuals and sundry documentation for a medical devices company in southern Wisconsin. I practice a different form of writing as a newshound for 3DGPU.com, an online tech / gaming fan site.
These days, I am a childlike 40 with an impish sense of humor and a voracious appetite for entertainment. I’m thoroughly immersed in music, movies, books. All of that conflicts nicely with my main hobby as a gamer, playing primarily FPS (first person shooters). That affords me the unique privilege to be something of a gaming evangelist, ministering to gamers in ways of which they aren’t aware.
I have owned and operated two game server leasing companies specializing in the Unreal Tournament franchise. I keep in tune with the pulse of the Unreal community as a Moderator for a number of UT clan forums.
I have always written - sometimes for fun, more recently for profit. While I had resigned myself to using these gifts for more mundane subjects, developments this year revealed something breathtaking - a desire to return to my creative writing roots. I’m working on science fiction with a moral core that is entertaining and quietly pervasive.
My goals as they stand right now: Writing Science Fiction with Fantasy elements for a not-specifically Christian audience to provide opportunities for moments of epiphany, entertaining while quietly drawing back the curtain of truth.
It feels great to pick my creative writing back up again. It’s been a long time coming. All the old daydreams have returned, tempered somehow by experience and hardship and hope. The best thing is that I can see the castles in the clouds again, and this time, I’m not alone.