From Cowboy to Police Officer to Soldier to Writer: An Author’s Journey
Someone once asked me, “What’s the difference between a war story and a fairy tale?”
Of course, I didn’t have a clue, but here’s how it got explained to me.
Fairy tales start with “Once upon a time” and end with “And they lived happily ever after.”
War stories start with either “There I was” or “This no shit.” And not everybody lives through it, much less happily ever after.
A lot of my life falls into the war stories category. I’d tell my stories and people would say, “You should write a book.” My answer was, “Forrest Gump has already been written!” Some of the things I’ve done, or been part of, or somehow managed to make it through are so outrageous, who would believe them!
And never once did I consider becoming a crime-fiction writer or a writer of police procedural mysteries. Let’s be honest here. A lot of what happens in my books occurred in one form or the other. There are a lot of things a person would just as soon not remember, like being covered from head to toe with someone’s blood. But I discovered writing is very therapeutic. And example is this story telling about the worst wreck I’d ever seen.
Then I hit upon an idea. Take the events and put them into a fictional character’s life. A lot of the things I’ve done became fuel for the stories.
From Cowboy to Police Officer to Soldier to Writer: An Author’s Journey
Someone once asked me, “What’s the difference between a war story and a fairy tale?”
Of course, I didn’t have a clue, but here’s how it got explained to me.
Fairy tales start with “Once upon a time” and end with “And they lived happily ever after.”
War stories start with either “There I was” or “This no shit.” And not everybody lives through it, much less happily ever after.
