I want to be a reader again.
I want to get lost in fiction, but whenever I grab a mug of caffeinated heat, mute all distractions and put eyes to page, I become a kenneled dog who thinks of nothing else but freedom. Maybe I’ve just lost the ability to lose myself.
I didn’t always have this problem. When I was young, I devoured Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Tree House books and R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps (quite a pairing, I know).
So what happened? Who’s to blame?
The culprit was imagination. It was simply too big for the kennel. The mind of a kid needs a wider range to roam. Fiction was only one color of a vivid inner spectrum, and I needed a wider lens to capture all imaginative realities. Cinematic music, video games, and an expansive LEGO collection expanded horizons.
There was just one problem: it was all trapped inside my head. So wonderful was my fantasy life that I assumed everyone else needed to know about it.
What could I do? Make music? At 10, I didn’t even know music theory was a thing. Be a gamer? Video Games just numbed the ache by pretending the horizons were closer. And although LEGOs could materialize worlds, they couldn’t write stories.
So I stole the family camcorder and filmed…LEGOs! I became something of an auteur. At last, I thought, the promise of fulfillment laid in filmmaking. It was the gold at the end of my rainbow. It was my creativity’s bride-to-be.
But Language, that wonderful written word, was a patient maiden, waiting until High School to ambush me with renewed vigor. I was too distracted by other women–flesh and blood women–to notice her creep close for the fatal cut. She used a paperback copy of Frankenstein to do the deed. A wrinkled edition of Shakespeare was in her other hand, but his pages were dull because I couldn’t understand him.
Language, in all her glory, made herself fully present to me. Little did I know this was the same Beloved that gripped me with the likes of Osborne and Stine. I assumed this “new” love wasn’t strong enough to keep me from my chosen love of film.
But I was the one not strong enough. I couldn’t resist the allure of beautiful black text on white pages. For the next decade, I devoted myself to two interests. My creativity oscillated, finding it hard to handle the energy required for both (to this day, I don’t think they ever found out I was two-timing them). Eventually, with my heart still bound to film, I made the hard decision to pursue the Beloved of my childhood…and write fiction.
During this young adult renaissance, I was told the best way to learn how to write was to read the sort of books I wanted to write.So I tried to read fantasy, sci-fi and westerns. The experience was a meager thrill. The kennel was still too small.
The experience brought my aforementioned problem to the fore: I just disliked reading fiction. Yes, I still loved language. In fact, my love of language “grew up,” and I started seeing this beautiful, no-nonsense mistress named nonfiction. We were an item. That’s when I truly discovered the joy of writing. Academic papers was the best part of my college experience!
Academics, however, does not fashion new worlds. All it can do is talk about said worlds. Therefore, with the problem of reading fiction still at large, I disregarded the advice to read what I want to write. I set out to write a book that I would want to read for myself. To borrow the words of C.S. Lewis, speaking to his friend, J.R.R. Tolkien: “There is too little of what we really like in stories. I am afraid we shall have to try and write some ourselves.” Although their works, literary titans as they are, humble every aspiring novelist, I still hope to achieve some resonance with those who share my interests.
I spent time practicing my craft with various short stories, mainly exploring the intersection of Theology and Fantasy. But imagination is a fickle thing. I’ve never been able to quench that lifelong desire to translate my imagination for others. Every time I lay pen to page (fingers to keyboard; my penmanship is so bad it’s illegal), the result is a mockery of what exists in my mind..
And so, ever haunted by ideas of wilderness, monsters and other worlds, I was nevertheless driven to get my imagination out in a sweeping, multi-volume story. From this effort came the Broken Vessel series. It took many forms over the years, and another few years to finally pin it down into a readable form, but it finally succumbed to my demands. Imperfect as it is, I’m relieved to say it’s finally ready for reading. The burden is lifted.
Like an experimental soup, I wanted to blend genres: Crime and Sci-Fi/Fantasy with sprinkles of Horror. The best way to describe the genre of Broken Vessel is “literary fantasy,” a cross between Literary Fiction and Fantasy. Complicating matters is the fact that most would consider it a Young Adult novel as well. Despite being a coming-of-age story, this series will not be for everyone. It wrestles with darker themes of lost innocence. Written in a subdued, minimalistic style, I encourage those who want to be readers (or readers again)to give it a try.
Please join me as we get lost together.