In 1980 I played with an idea that joined mythical elements with theological history—I am not certain what genre I was wading into. Non-canonical gospel writings gave the name Patronius to the leader of centurion guard sent to guard to Jesus tomb. During the night he dreams he meets Sisyphus rolling that stone up the hill. I submitted it to the Pacific Lutheran University literary magazine. It was selected and awarded 2nd prize for short fiction. Then in May of 1980 I was graduated and I began writing another short story based on the myth of Daedalus and Icarus that was going to deal with struggles between fathers and sons. 379 (or so) pages later I felt I had written enough of a short story. I submitted it to a publishing house. They sat on it for a year and then sent it back saying I needed to flesh out the characters. At that time my wife and I were now living on the Long Beach peninsula (Washington State). Heavily involved in youth ministry, writing took a back seat. I was writing about what faith can mean in a community that had lost much of its fishing identity and was trying to survive long enough to establish a new one. Then we moved back up to the Puget Sound area where we had both grown up and we began to start a family. Different things to write about surfaced as I began to explore what it meant to be a pioneer stay-at-home dad. Finally our children headed off to college and it became time to drag out that Aoris adventure and see what could be done with it. I began turning back the clock. How had my views as a young college graduate newly wed husband changed as I had become a father and dealt with the lost of both of my parents, events that happen to us all in the passage of time and affect how we see ourselves in the relationships we have. In the process the 300+ page manuscript became 5 books, the first of which is 400+ pages and deals with only the first third of the original manuscript. Opportunities to publish other material have occurred, but the life of Ician Goth, the third son of the Torr Lord, is nearing his debut. I am feeling those parental feelings I had went my wife and I sent our children off to school.
Posted on: Mon, 21 Oct 2013 23:21:20 +0000
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