Where is Lachoneus Part 2?

People who have read In the Days of Lachoneus: Book 1 - The Gathering can tell by the ending that Book 1 is not the whole story. Book 1 is just the setup for the rest of the story. So, they ask, am I writing the next book?

Yes! I answer enthusiastically. But not without distractions. The series will consist of three books. I have outlined the entire series. I know the characters, I know the plots, I know the settings, I know the timeline, and I know I have a lot of writing ahead of me.

I was about to start writing Book 2 when I was prompted to start a different project. The thought came to me that I am the only surviving relative of my mother and father. Their story needs to be told before anything happens to me and the connection between my parents and the next generations is lost forever. I knew I had to write their life stories before I could continue with Lachoneus.

So as much as I wanted to work on Lachoneus, I went to work on my parents' stories instead. It turned out to be a great experience. I recalled memories I had not thought about in many years. I remembered the names of people whom I have not seen or heard from in more than fifty years. By writing about not only my parents but about the people who were important in their lives, I feel like I have validated their existences along with my parents.

I finished the book about my parents just this last week. The Life Sketches of David and Iva Armstrong will never be published. I am printing copies for the grandchildren of my parents as an heirloom to be handed down to their children and grandchildren. They can make as many copies as they want. This was a project that had to be done. And now that I have satisfied the prompting - I believe a prompting from the other side of the veil - I can pick up Lachoneus again.

So for those who are wondering when the next part of the Lachoneus series is coming, don't despair. Book 2 is going to start becoming more than just a figment of my imagination. Provided, of course, I don't get any more directives from the spirit world.

What inspires me to write?

My inspiration to write comes mostly from reading and thinking. When I read an excellent story or article that moves me and impacts my life in a positive way, I am motivated to want to do the same thing for others. I have an innate desire in me to want to elevate others as I have been lifted. I want to give back something of what I have received. When something I read touches me, the experience always awakens in me that desire to touch others. In my altruistic moments I think we humans are put here on this earth to help each other. If I can make even a small difference in one person's day by sharing a positive thought or telling a story that boosts his courage or enhances her hope or just brings a moment of peace, I will have filled one aspect of the measure of my creation.

I have also found for me personally that the very act of writing also inspires me to write more. I get pleasure from writing, especially when I am in the writing groove and the words flow easily and fluidly. I enjoy the sensation of having my mind alive with words and ideas. I get a high from the creative process. Sometimes I have to force myself to start writing. Nevertheless, when I follow my discipline and get those juices flowing, the joy of writing is not only its own reward, but I feed on it, and that joy keeps me writing.

Finally, God inspires me to write. I believe in God and His Son, Jesus Christ. I love them. I believe they love me. When I see their love around me, I feel like I have to write about it. It is not good enough to just experience it. I have to share it. If I can write something that lifts another just a little closer to God, I feel like I have done something worthwhile.

Advice for Aspiring Writers

As an aspiring writer myself, here is what I have told myself about learning to be a writer.

1. Be consistent. Writing must be a habit. Whether you are writing a novel, an essay, a non-fiction article, a family history or a personal journal, write every day. Find your peak time when you have energy. Find a place free of distractions. Create regularity in your writing habit. Your brain will engage quickly and efficiently when it reacts to routine. If you are constantly surprising yourself with a new time and a different location, your mind will spend too much time adjusting and not enough time creating.

2. Practice. Writing is a skill. It is true that it is highly creative, but beneath all the magical creativity is a craft that has to be learned. Improving your writing is just like improving the ability to play a musical instrument or paint a picture or build a beautiful piece of furniture. Great ideas without the craft to execute them are wasted. Effective practice requires instruction, repetition, and feedback. Take classes and read books about writing, use what you have learned in your writing, and then solicit honest feedback from professionals.

3. Join a writers' club. A writers' group is an excellent place to get feedback on your writing while giving you insight into the writing of others. Look for a group that includes a variety of interests, genres, and experience levels. Online groups can be just as effective as face-to-face groups. Make sure you find a group where respect and courtesy are promoted along with honesty. Just rubbing shoulders with other writers is inspiring and motivating.

4. Be humble and teachable. Assume that you always have something to learn. If you have chosen people you trust and respect to give you feedback, assume they are giving you honest insights, which you can use to improve your writing. Writing can be very personal. You are putting your heart and soul into a creative effort that may express something deeply meaningful to you. It is hard to hear that your baby has warts. Nevertheless, look for opportunities to learn and improve.

5. Accept all criticism graciously. Assume that most criticism is meant to be constructive and helpful. Some criticism and suggestions will be right on. Others may be dead wrong. When it comes to writing, right and wrong are highly subjective. You do not have to act on all the criticism you receive, but don't be defensive. Always thank the person who has been brave enough to offer feedback, whether or not you believe it or accept it. The more graciously you receive and respond to feedback, the more likely you are to continue to receive feedback. The more feedback you receive, the more likely it is that at least some of it will be helpful.

6. Write what you like. If you write merely to sell, writing will become just another job. It is hard to get inspired and stay engaged in a project you do not really like. For the vast majority of writers, writing will always be a hobby. Of the millions of books published every year, only a few make the best-seller list. If you go into writing thinking you will get rich, or even make a living, the odds are very high that you will be disappointed. The goal, first and foremost, should be to spend your time doing something you enjoy. If you get more pleasure from woodworking or painting than writing, leave writing alone and concentrate on what brings you joy. If you like poetry, then write beautiful poetry, and don't worry about whether anyone will buy it. Life is too short to be a slave to a particular market niche.

7. Don't expect to write a blockbuster. Blockbusters are made by marketers, not by authors. Many excellent literary works never make the best-seller lists or get turned into movies. If your aspiration is to write the very best book or article or essay you can, and it expresses something about which you feel passionate, and you say it in an appropriate way, you can expect to feel deep gratification when you have finished your project. Find the joy in the process rather than the product. Anything that happens beyond that glorious moment of completion is an added bonus.

8. Keep writing. It is easy to second guess yourself. In the solitary hours of writing, you will doubt yourself, your ability, your motivation, the value of what you are doing. The details can become overwhelming, and the unrequited effort will seem useless. You are sure you are wasting your time. Don't give in to these temptations. You had a vision, a purpose, and a determination when you started your project. Don't give up. See it through to the end. The vision may lapse for a moment, but it will return. Stay focused on the end goal and keep writing. It will be worth it.

What I Love About Writing

I love the process of creation. I enjoy the feeling that comes when new thoughts form in my head and then spill out onto my computer screen. I savor the taste of well-formed phrases and sentences. I like the surprise when a word I haven't thought about in a long time suddenly pops into a sentence at just the right moment. I get a thrill when things happen that I had not planned.

At the same time, I enjoy the feeling of power that writing brings. I can control very little in this world. Events, the past, the future, people, especially those I love, are all beyond my direct control. I can influence sometimes, but I cannot change what is. In writing, however, I have total control. My characters look the way I want them to look, say what I want them to say, act the way I want them to act. All within reason, of course. They do take on lives of their own that are not fully in my control once they start to mature. Nevertheless, I created them, I can mold them through the circumstances into which I choose to place them, and I can help them grow in predictable ways.

I also write non-fiction. Here, too, I find joy. I get great satisfaction from making an idea clear for others to understand. I love seeing the light dawn in someone's eyes when they read a truth I have uncovered for them.

The very act of putting thoughts into word form has been a source of joy and satisfaction for me for as long as I can remember. I am not a good extemporaneous speaker. I do not think well on my feet. When I have time, however, to go inside my head and examine ideas and then spin them into words on paper, I get a natural high. It lifts my spirits.

The downside to writing for me is that I am a perfectionist, and there is no perfection in writing. Words can be put together in many ways, and no one way is the perfect way. And so a piece of writing for me is never done. I simply stop polishing it at some point and let it go. To find the one perfect pearl is to leave a whole lot of lovely shells lying along the shore. I am learning to be satisfied with my collection of shells even while I still wait for the pearl of great price.

Overcoming Writer's Block

I define "writer's block" as either a lack of ideas or an inability to articulate an idea in a way that flows with the rest of the narrative. I may come to a point in a story where I simply do not know what a character will do or say next. I may not have thought out that part of the story well enough, or what I had outlined no longer seems plausible, or perhaps it doesn't fit in the story line any longer because the story has taken an unexpected turn. I just do not know what should happen next.

Other times I am stumped by how to describe an action or carry on with a dialog. I know what I want to have happen and its impact on the story, but the right words just won't come. My writing feels awkward, forced, or contrived. This often happens when I am not fully immersed in the character or the scene. I have lost the rhythm of my writing. Because I am a part-time writer, I do not have the luxury of devoting many continuous hours to pumping out prose. A fair amount of my writing time in any given session is spent in getting my head back into the story before I can pick up where I left off. In some ways I feel blocked every time I sit down to write, so I have had lots of experience with overcoming writer's block.

My most potent weapon against writer's block is routine. I try to write five days a week and always at the same time. When I know my writing session will be starting soon, my mind goes to work in the background. I start thinking about where I left off and what comes next in the story before I ever open the lid to my laptop. Then when I actually put my hands on the keyboard, I am already geared up to write. Occasionally life happens and my regular writing session gets overridden by other priorities. Missing one session is not disastrous. Missing several days in a row, however, can pose serious problems. This is when I most often run into writer's block.

My first step is always to analyze the source of my block. Am I stuck on plot, action, dialog, character, or words. Depending on what I think is the source of my problem, I will take one of several actions outlined below.

Go back and pick up the thread again. Because I write in spurts, I often get blocked because I cannot remember what comes next. I know I was leading up to some important point in my last writing session, but now I cannot remember exactly what that point is. I may have to go back several paragraphs or even several pages and refresh myself on the narrative that brought me to the point in the story where I am stuck. Reading again the previous events, actions, and dialog will usually bring me back to that pivotal moment, which was eluding me at the beginning of my session. I restore my train of thought, and I can move on.

Reread my character dictionary. A character dictionary is essential for me. When the story contains more than a handful of characters, it is hard for me to keep the details and nuances of all the characters in my head all the time. I can become blocked when I try to write about a character whom I haven't thought about in a while or whom I cannot picture in my head at the moment. I may be trying to write dialog or an action for a character , and my subconscious is telling me that something is wrong. The subconscious is excellent at general warnings but not so good at details. When I sense that something I am trying to write about a character is wrong, I go back to my dictionary and immerse myself in the character's description, backstory, goals, motivations, and voice. I may also have to backtrack in my writing to other places where this character has appeared. When the character is fully in my head and I am fully in his or her heart, the mistakes I was making in the current point in the story are easily recognizable, and the words start to flow again.

Go back to the critical divergence from my outline and see if it was perhaps a wrong turn. Most writers will attest that stories tend to write themselves. No matter how thorough their outline may be, once they start writing, unexpected things happen. The logic of the outline is overtaken by the commotion of events and the unanticipated development of the characters. Sometimes, however, these unplanned twists and turns can send me down a blind alley. I may have to backtrack through my story, reading it backwards, until I find that critical moment where I let a character or action take my story off track. Though the writing may have been brilliant, I may have to discard pages of exciting text because they simply led down a path of no return. (I don't just delete them, however. I save them in case I get inspired to write a different story someday into which my magnificent but misguided prose will fit perfectly.)

Do something else and let my subconscious work on the problem. When I have pondered and puzzled over a problem in my writing until I become frustrated or tired, I will put my writing aside and do something totally different for a while, such as work in the yard or go for a bike ride. The subconscious mind is a magnificent machine, which works best when it is not under duress and when it is not distracted by conscious thoughts. When I put my mind to an entirely different path, my subconscious works magic. It slaves away happily on my problem until it hits on a solution. It will then tap lightly on the door of my conscious thoughts. I will be in the middle of something totally unrelated when suddenly a burst of inspiration from my subconscious will surface, and I will have an exciting Ah Ha! moment. My head will be filled with ideas, and I can return to my writing refreshed and ready to plow ahead.

Just keep writing until the rhythm returns. The words can be flowing freely from my head through my hands and onto the screen in perfect clarity, and then suddenly clouds form in my mind and obscure the clarity. A film develops over my thoughts, and the formation of words becomes like trying to push my hard through stubborn cellophane. At these times I just keep pushing through. Though the words feel awkward and unnatural, I just keep writing. I know, however, that what I am writing will not survive. I'm going to throw it away. But I just keep moving, however slowly and haltingly, however useless and unsatisfying the effort may feel. For I have faith that on the other side of the cellophane is freedom. The sun is still shining on the other side of the clouds. I just have to push through them. If I am patient and persistent, the rhythmic flow returns. I can plunge ahead again, knowing that I will have to go back and fix the mess I just made. On another day, when the sun is bright again, I will return to that cloudy spot and brighten it up

Jump ahead to a part I know better and then return and see if I can build a better bridge. I may reach a point in the narrative where I just do not know which way to turn. Nothing feels right about the character, the scene, the dialog, or the action. I am stuck in the weeds in an unfamiliar section of the swamp. When this happens, I may choose to skip ahead to a part of the story where I am confident in my outline, my characters, and the intended outcome. I can profitably spend my time in another scene or even another chapter and make satisfactory progress there. As I work on a later episode in the story, ideas will come about what I should do in the earlier part of the story to allow the narrative to flow into this later section. I have an easier time untangling the weeds around my knees and making my out of the swamp when I know the shore to which I am headed.

Write something else. I may get blocked simply because I am tired of working on the same thing for a long period of time. The mind, like the body, needs a break from time to time. I need to stretch my muscles in different ways. I need a diversion to let my mind relax and recharge. I do not necessarily need to abandon my writing session, but I may be able to profitably use my time to write something different for a change. This might be a good time to write a blog article, develop an essay idea, write in my journal, or compose a letter to a friend. The change of pace brings refreshment. After a little side trip, I am ready to get back on the main path again and climb the next hill with renewed vigor

Read something else. I try to find where another author has dealt with the situation I am trying to solve and see how she did it. I do not plagiarize, obviously, but I look for inspiration. I may look for a different way to say something, a new way to present dialog, or perhaps just hear a new voice. It is good sometimes just to hear someone else's words. Reading can change my mood and lift my spirits. Usually it simply inspires me to keep going, knowing that every author has run into the same kinds of problems I am facing, and somehow they got through them. If they could do it, so can I.

Finally, I counsel with myself to never give up. I may have to take a break and come back later, bur I will always come back. Even a bad idea needs to be seen through to the end. Giving up can become a habit, and once I start giving up on bad ideas, it becomes easier to give up on good ideas, and eventually I won't have the discipline to finish that one great idea that will become my best seller.

Why Lachoneus?

Readers have asked why I chose the story of Lachoneus and the Gadiantons for my first novel. That is a great question. In some ways I broke the first rule of writing, which is to write about what you know. I knew very little about the geography, geology, flora, fauna, and culture in which my story would be set. I had to research every aspect of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and talk to experts who have been in that part of the world to get details for the setting. What I knew for sure, though, was the dramatic and inspiring story of a people who undertook heroic efforts to resist and defeat terrorism.

As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have read the Book of Mormon many times. I love the doctrinal truths of Christ, the Savior and Redeemer of the world, explained in their plainness and simplicity in the words of ancient New World prophets as translated by Joseph Smith. I love the Book of Mormon as another witness of Jesus Christ, standing next to the Bible as the word of God.

Nevertheless, I have also been fascinated by the stories and the people of the Book of Mormon. This book of scripture is full of dramatic events, sweeping themes, and character development. Young people come of age as they face challenges, seek redemption, and forge heroic conquests. Spies and robbers, captains and generals, prophets and kings take the stage. Men and women risk their lives to protect their families, their liberty, and their religion. It speaks of gigantic battles, decade-long wars, revenge, executions, beheadings, burning at the stake, genocide, holocausts, duels. Spoiler alert: in the end, cultural evil triumphs over good, but individual righteousness overcomes all other wickedness.

The Book of Mormon is fertile soil from which fabulous stories can be cultivated. It is also highly relevant to our current time and situation. Though the book was written more than sixteen centuries ago and published almost two hundred years ago, it was written for our day by prophets who saw our times and the challenges we would face. The themes are fresh, germane, and to the point for people living in the Twenty-First Century.

What motivated or inspired me to take a theme and characters from the Book of Mormon around which to weave a work of fiction? This episode in the history of the people in the Book of Mormon is particularly fascinating. Their society has gone through great upheaval and dramatic change in the previous generation. Traditional cultural norms and roles have been reversed. The Lamanites, who throughout the history of the people have been bloodthirsty pagans and atheists, have generally been converted to the One True God and have become a delightful, peaceful, faithful community. The Nephties, on the other hand, who traditionally have been the followers of God, have begun to apostatize from their religion and have become greedy, worldly, and full of pride, with hearts set on riches. The Nephite civilization is beginning to disintegrate under the pressures of corruption and evil.

Spawned by this maelstrom of growing incivility, and directly tied to it, is the establishment among the Nephites of a "secret combination". A small group of malcontents, who are willing to murder anyone and everyone to push their agenda, quickly gains power. They grow into a powerful gang of robbers and terrorists whose goal is to overthrow the crumbling Nephite government and take full control of the society. This band of outlaws is called the Gadiantons, named after one of their early leaders. They become a military force, with strongholds in the mountains. They are supported by sleeper cells among the Nephite populate in the cities below.

This is the setting and backstory of In the Days of Lachoneus. It is like reading the headlines of today's newspaper.

What is missing in the scriptural account of this great cultural battle are the details. The Book of Mormon gives a few names, such as Lachoneus, who is the governor of the Nephites, and Giddianhi, who is the chief of the Gadiantons. But it tells little of their personal lives. As I have read the brief description of the events in the scripture, I have wondered who these people were. What was it like to be the governor of a dilapidated society threatened with extinction? How did a man like Giddianhi become the leader of a terrorist organization? Did Lachoneus have a family? What was it like to live under the constant threat of terrorist attacks? These were real people with real lives, most of which are ignored by the prophets who wrote the Book of Mormon. They had limited resources, and wrote under difficult circumstances, and with a particular purpose in mind. They used the events of the past to teach precepts of faith, repentance, and charity. But I cannot help thinking about the people. And so in absence of facts, my imagination conjures up the details that the scriptures leave out. Out of my imaginings came the novel.

Is it not sacrilegious to cast scriptural figures and events into a novel and to add characters and dialog that never actually existed? Well, I hope not. I have tried to keep the people named in the Book of Mormon account true to their roles, even if I had to make them say things and do things in the novel to move the story along that are not included in the scripture. I am not adding to the scriptures. This is a novel, a work of fiction. I have no way of knowing what Lachoneus or Giddianhi actually said or did beyond what is written in the scriptures. I have had to make up all of the people and the details out of my imagination. I have received no added revelation. Nothing I have written in this novel should ever be quoted in a church setting.

Is my book like Chris Heimerdinger's Tennis Shoes series? First, I loved Mr. Heimerdinger's books. When my son was in junior high school, we read all of the Tennis Shoes books together. He wrote excellent books for young readers and included fun elements of fantasy and magic. My novel, on the other hand, is targeted for more mature readers. I treat the adult themes that are part of the story in a circumspect way, but those themes are still there. No magic or time travel occur in my story. It is written as historical fiction through the points of view of the characters who lived at the time of the events portrayed in the story.

Is this novel only for Mormons? Again, I hope not. I have tried to avoid assumptions about what people may or may not already know about the chapters in the Book of Mormon on which the story is based. The story carries a certain religious theme because religion was an important part of the people's lives. It does not, however, promote Latter-day Saint theology per se. I tried to portray religious principles and rituals as I think they were observed in the time and place of the story. The people of the Book of Mormon were descendants of Israelite ancestors who obeyed the Law of Moses and believed in Jehovah. The religion and culture of the Jews was carried forward by the Nephites throughout their history until the resurrection of Christ and the ushering in of the New Covenant, as described in the New Testament of the Bible. The religious believers in Lachoneus's day were waiting for the Messiah, just as were their Jewish cousins in Jerusalem.

So though the story is based on a religious text, it is not an inherently religious story. It is a story about a clash of cultures, politics, and powers. It is about people who lived ordinary lives in extraordinary times. It is a story about our day and time. The events may be set in 14 A.D., but the themes, the challenges, and the dangers are as current as the Internet, Smartphones, and YouTube.

The Price of Solitude

Writing is solitary work. I have to be alone when I write. That doesn't mean that people are not around me when I write, I just don't acknowledge them. Much of In the Days of Lachoneus was written while I was commuting home from work on the Front Runner train from Draper to Farmington. The train has many passengers at rush hour, and I often sat next to one person and faced a second directly across from me. Yet I was completely alone.

Most days I would find an empty seat on the aisle on the upper deck of the second car behind the engine. I did not always sit in exactly the same seat, but generally in the same area. A few faces I recognized as regular riders. Most, however, always seemed to be new faces. I would find a seat and glance at those sitting next to and across from me. For my convenience and to my relief my fellow riders usually had put up their do-not-disturb signs: headphones and eyes closed. Everyone had a book, a laptop, or cell phone in their hands. If their eyes were not closed, they were riveted on the thing in their lap. Occasionally one or the other of my fellow passengers would acknowledge my presence with a brief nod, perhaps a wan smile, or sometimes just a flick of the eyes. Then the walls would go up, and I was left in my solitude to write.

Hour after hour, day after day, I rode in silence next to strangers who never spoke. They had no idea what I was doing, and I had no idea what they were doing. I might as well have been in Agent Maxwell Smart's cone of silence. I enjoyed the silence because I had work to do. Looking back now, however, it was eerie. It's how I imagine riding the subway in New York would be. People jammed together, breathing the same air, occupying the same space, yet all totally and completely alone, each entombed in his own thoughts and preoccupations.

It is a defense mechanism. When we are assaulted, we respond with fight or flight. We either strike back or we hunker down beneath our shield. A train car full of strangers put us all on the defensive. Occasionally a passenger would turn to "fight" mode. They would be loud and obnoxious or play music from a speaker instead of wearing headphones. Such fighters generally seemed to drive the rest of us into deeper "flight" mode. The atmosphere of the car would be filled with fear and uneasiness. Even the quick glances and furtive smiles for newcomers disappeared beneath a hard shell of concentration. When the obnoxious troublemaker left the train, the sigh of relief from the other passengers was palpable.

What a funny way to live! I recall one time, however, when I broke the pattern of crowded solitude. On this particular day, I had disrupted my usual routine of sitting on the upper deck. When I got onto the train at Draper I saw an entirely empty pod of seats on the lower deck, and I scooted happily into the vacancy. I had opened my laptop and found my place in my manuscript and was ready to start writing when we got to the next station. A young man boarded carrying a suitcase and a duffel bag, His lost expression caught my eye, and I motioned for him to bring his luggage over and use my spare room. He situated his bags, sat down, said thanks, and stared out the window.

My first inclination was to focus on my laptop and try to get a few more pages written. This man was not in the mood to talk. Yet I was strangely uncomfortable with this fellow sitting across from me staring blankly at the window. I ventured out of my cone of silence and spoke. I commented on his luggage and asked if he was coming or going.

My random question opened the floodgates for this young man, who desperately needed someone to talk to. He was returning to his boyhood home after having been gone for many years. As I listened to him, I heard the story of the quintessential prodigal son. He had left home as a teenager to get away from the stifling restrictions of his parents' lifestyle. He had traveled around the country trying various things. He had tried the wild life of hard living and had a difficult time making a go of it. He was living out of his car in Seattle when his car and all of his possessions were stolen. He made his way to Las Vegas, thinking it would be easier to find a job. It was there that he was mugged and beaten by an assailant with a lead pipe for the five dollars he had in his pocket. A police officer just happened to wander by the ally and noticed the scene. The policeman apprehended the attacker, but not before he had shattered the face and split the skull of the young man. My new friend had tears in his eyes as he spoke of the cop who surely saved his life. The scars on his forehead and cheeks, the greenish-black bruises around his eyes, and his wickedly crooked nose testified of the savage beating.

Having just been released from medical supervision, and with a few possessions donated by the local homeless shelter, he was making his way home to see if his parents would let him stay with them while he finished recuperating. He had learned for himself that his parents' life wasn't so bad after all. He was grateful that he still had one place he could go where he would be safe.

He finished his story just before we arrived at my stop in Farmington. He still had two stops to go to get to Clearfield and to see if the family car would be waiting for him. I told him that God had let these things happen to him to bring him home. He had been given a second chance, and he should not blow it. He said he was sure of it. He was not mad at God but only at himself for having put himself in a situation where God literally had to hit him over the head to bring him to his senses. I promised him that I would pray for him, which I did every day for several weeks.

I left the train that day having not written a single word of manuscript. The broken solitude was the price I had paid to help lift a young man in need.

I ask myself, what is the price of my daily choice to live and write in solitude? How many around me, even with their do-not-disturb signs in place, are hoping someone will take a moment, take a chance, lift the cone of silence, and speak a friendly word? How many prodigal sons and daughters do I share the train with everyday to whom I give nothing more than a glance, a nod, and a weak smile, hoping they will ignore me and let me stay in my shell?

Perhaps God will give me a second chance, too.

Beginning at the Beginning - not very original, but it's the truth

The school year had just begun, and I was in seventh grade, my first year in junior high school. English class was first period. It's the first day of a new class with a new teacher in a new school with a lot of new kids I had never seen before. Yikes! Who wants to relive that memory again?

But something amazing happened in that class. Mrs. Upham asked us to write an essay on any topic we wanted. The only guidelines were that it had to be two pages long, and it had to express an opinion. What could I possibly write about that I had an opinion on? That was a puzzler! Puzzler? That reminded me of the Riddler, which reminded me of the Batman TV show, which was a weekly staple in my house. The idea of a superhero TV show was great, except that I wanted it to be a serious show about serious characters and serious crime-busting. To a seventh-grader who took his superheros seriously, the campy Batman series, with Adam West in the title role was, well, silly, not serious. 

I had a topic on which I had an opinion. I wrote two pages about how ridiculous the show was, with the phony fight scenes that were punctuated with comic-book animations of Wam! Blam! Powy!, which covered the real action. All I needed now was a title. My best friend and I share a contempt for the show, although we never missed an episode. My friend's dad had once made a comment about the show. He said it should have been titled, "Fatman and Bobbin the Boy Blunder". That phrase stuck in my head, and it sounded so cool that I knew I had to use it in my essay. So I made it the title.

Mrs. Upham gave me an A on my writing assignment. It is always encouraging to start off a new class with an A. 

But then a couple of weeks later it was Back to School Night for the parents. I accompanied my mom and dad around the campus. We showed up at our designated time for my first period English class. When Mrs. Upham finished talking to another set of parents, she turned to me and asked me to introduce my parents. She then said the most marvelous thing. "Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, your son shows a real talent for writing." She showed them my essay with the big fat A written in red across the top. "The title of this essay is exceptionally clever. David obviously has an ear for alliteration." I had never heard the word "alliteration" before. "I think he should think seriously about writing more. The school is starting a journalism class next year. I would like him to sign up for that class."

From that moment on, I knew I wanted to be a writer. I signed up for the journalism class, and I began to learn to write. I was in journalism for my last two years of junior high school and all three years of high school. In my senior year I was co-editor-in-chief of the Lakewood High School newspaper, along with co-editor Mimi McBride. (I had a crush on Mimi, but I'll save that story for another day.)

Another great influence on my writing life was my ninth-grade English teacher, Mr. Garvin. Most of the students dreaded Mr. Garvin's class. He was dry, humorless, and strict. But I loved his class. He taught me to write a term paper, research, take notes, organize my thoughts, outline, and edit. He also had an expansive vocabulary, and I thought it was totally cool to know words that no one else knew. I learned tremendous lessons from Mr. Garvin.

The other man from whom I learned much about writing and even more about decorum and organization was Mr. Eisenberger, my journalism teacher throughout high school. He was a pronounced conservative with graying hair and a debonair mustache. He wore a tie and a three-piece suit to school every day. He encouraged us to read the Christian Science Monitor as the pinnacle of professional journalistic expertise. I learned the Five Ws of the lead sentence of a good news story. I learned to write headlines, layout a page of newsprint, set type by hand, run a line-o-type machine, and meet a deadline. More importantly, I learned from Mr. Eisenberger how to work on a team and lead a team. 

All of that was many decades ago. Mr. Eisenberger passed away many years ago. The last time I saw Mimi, she and her husband owned a seafood restaurant in Long Beach, California. I have not seen or heard of Mrs. Upham since I left Bancroft Junior High School in 1969. I went by Mr. Garvin's classroom once while I was in high school just to tell him what an excellent teacher he was.  Yet I have never forgotten the influence these people had on my life.

I have been writing ever since that first day in Mrs. Upham's class. I did not pursue a journalism career, I tried teaching for a brief period, but ended up in software development and project management. Though I do not write for newspapers, I have written thousands of pages of technical reports, project status reports, and business requirements documents. I have written volumes of personal histories and journals. I published an article in a software business journal and a fiction short story for children. I have also written hundreds of pages on various religious topics. All of this preparation has finally brought me to point where I am ready to tackle a novel.

Funny to think that it all started with a simple, innocent act of plagiarism in a seventh grade English class. I have been trying to live up to Mrs. Upham's expectations for fifty years.