I began writing what would eventually become my first novel, “Suffering Madness”, in 1995. My design goals at the time were fairly small - I was targeting the short story market in magazines to try to develop a name. After enough rejections to wallpaper my office, I realized my writing was pretty bad... in fact, reading it could be defined as a horror in itself for any magazine editor.

Fortunately, my desire to write and tell stories overshadowed any detail like the mechanics of writing, and I was dumb enough to press past the rejections telling me I was clueless. I joined three critique groups at the same time, each requiring writing assignments and critiques and each holding their own strength in writing. One focused on character development, another on the mechanics of writing (“The Elements of Style” by Shrunk and White was their foundation), and the last centered on how to tell a really good story.