THE JOURNEY
Back in roughly 2016, I had a little idea that I’d try my hand at fiction writing. So, I did. I moved away from the realm of academic writing for a bit, and wrote about some fantastical scenes of silver orbs revolving around a planet and giving the inhabitants special powers. I wrote about big booming explosions and impregnable walls that could give the players in my story a respite from any attacks. I drew on various inspirations, most notably the stories of Constantine, The Dark is Rising, and many of the great stories I’ve read from the likes of Brandon Sanderson, Michael Sullivan, Peter Brett, Margaret Atwood, Django Wexler, Patrick Rothfuss, and–of course–Tolkien, Martin, Jordan, Herbert, and numerous others.
That turned out horribly, and I got a lot of good, pointed feedback from friends. But it taught me a lot.
So, in 2018, I began another story, about a desert landscape where the last of humanity was stranded, fighting against a relentless foe that sought to destroy them, and waging war so that they have a fragile hope of salvation at the end of some great length of time. These elements of struggle, sacrifice, perseverance, and rules–too much of fiction doesn’t have the rules that I loved seeing in Constantine (even angels and demons can’t fight inside Papa Midnight’s bar) and The Dark is Rising (the High Magic oversees how the Light and Dark fight against one another)–were the basis of this new project.
I called this project The Range, and in early 2020, I got serious about making this little ethereal idea a reality.
I went onto Upwork.com (a website I’d used to contract freelancers for assistance with academic research projects) to find freelance editors to help develop my story and ideas. After a first read from two editors, I picked one of them to keep working with, and used her suggestions and critical feedback to develop a story of roughly 60,000 words.
In May 2020, I found and hired a freelance illustrator to sketch out two full-page illustrations that embodied two central elements in this story–The Range and The Core of a settlement in this little story that’s called “Camp Gamma”–and then I recruited four separate readers through Upwork (two of whom worked for small publishing houses), to give me more critical feedback on how the story was shaping up. I found another illustrator to sketch the central protagonist, Tomias, at least as I saw him in my own mind.
In short, I write and research a lot about entrepreneurs, and I decided it was about time I became one.
And that’s where I am, right now.
THE POINT OF ALL THIS
I want this site to be a launching pad for an aspiration of mine:
…to publish a great work of fiction, and see where that leads me.
My day job is writing academic research on corporate executives and their decisions, large firms and their reputations, and innovative enterprises of all sizes. Some of that will crop up in this site, but most of the stuff you’ll see will highlight the fun and fantastical elements of fiction that I’d love to share with the world.
I’m doing this publicly because it’s more real, to me, than just keeping a journal or writing a draft on my laptop.
Thank you for taking the time to read this, and I hope you enjoy your stay!