This is an update of an old post, which I had written some time
ago, but which I really felt that I needed to republish, as it has now been a
whole year since The Book of Drachma, as a trilogy, became a published reality.
It has been quite a journey for me. But for now, at least, the journey seems to
have stalled out. With our move, my new job, and all that that entails. But
still, I do envision myself as a writer of sorts – not highly successful, but
nevertheless, I am still at it – still working my way through the continuation
of the Drachma story.
Now to begin, I have to take you back a ways. Now I've always
thought that I "had a book in me" that wanted to get out. Even
thinking back to childhood, and those exercises in English class, which just
seemed to whet my appetite for something more substantial. And even later, in
college, what I remember most vividly was that instead of a term paper, our
professor allowed us to write something fictional instead, and so came
Professor Snubkin's Hamletpain. A one act play, which I wrote, we performed,
and I directed, to the amusement of our college class. But then, as I had to
make a career choice, I realized that medicine was where I was going, and I've
not regretted it. It has been a rewarding thing to have pursued.
But one thing happened in college that really stuck with me, and
that was the publication of Stephen Donaldson's best selling, and award-winning
fantasy trilogy, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Now this was particularly
relevant to me, as I knew Steve Donaldson - he was my brother's age, and we
attended the same boarding school in India. Now I do not pretend to have
anywhere near the talent that Steve has, but that little bit of fertilizer and
seed was planted in my own psyche. Then, to make matters even more compelling,
someone in my own class in boarding school, Kai Bird, went ahead and wrote
American Prometheus (the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer), and he got a Pulitzer
prize for doing so.
Well, this was indeed the fertile soil from which grew my own
literary efforts. And it happened at a medical conference in Cincinnati, late
in 1988, when there were a bunch of us sitting around at lunch, bemoaning the
state of the medical profession, as portrayed in the lay media. Not just about
the inaccuracies of what they were portraying, but the feelings and motivations
were all wrong! So, on my way back home, I envisioned this grand medical story
– one in which I would get the facts right, but more importantly, get the
feelings right.
As I now had a word processor at home, there seemed to be
nothing in my way (except time), so I began to write what eventually became The
Book of Drachma. It truly became an obsession with me, and a compulsion as
well. I wrote the first part quite quickly, and I wrote a few more chapters
into the second part. But then, I went through a divorce, moved, changed
computer systems, and all the while my novel (which did not yet have a name)
just sat in my office gathering dust. Then, late in 2009, one of the women in
my office (Michelle Ogle), offered to transcribe my novel into a
word-compatible format, and I decided to put it out on my blog, one chapter per
week. But then it needed a name - so The Book of Drachma it became.
Now, what was my own motivation for all this writing? It certainly
was not money. No, rather, by now the characters themselves were clamoring to
be heard, and to have their stories told. It became harder to keep to the story
line that I had envisioned, with all these characters, whom I loved, wanting to
speak. But, by the time I was nearly done with Part Three, I realized that the
characters themselves had told an even better tale than I could have envisioned
for them. From then on, it was just a matter of finding a voice for these
characters, and I stumbled onto Tate publishing.
So, you see, it's not for fame (or notoriety) that I write. It
is more like some sort of perverse need to allow my characters, who still need
to tell their tales, that I write. Hope you can get a copy of my book(s),
available on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and similar online sources (and
available in three formats - paperback, e-books and audio books) and let me
know what you think.
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