A letter from the author

This has been a long time coming.

I have no clue what I’m doing when it comes to self-publishing, but others have made it work, so I’m just jumping in with both feet.

I was bitten by the creative-bug at a young age. As a child I was writing stories and drawing pictures, first for my mom, then for my friends. Growing up I wanted to be an animator for Disney or a cartoonist like Bill Watterson and create the next Calvin and Hobbes. I grew older and the creative-bug only grew stronger, all through middle school and high school. But then I made the deliberate decision to drop out of college to get married and raise kids.

The dream would have wait.

During those years I dabbled with comic strips, but sadly realized this amazing American folk-art was a dying art form. Then it was on to graphic novels, a more experimental version of comic books. Graphic novels were character driven stories, outside the usual superhero genre with its spandex-wearing heroes punching each other into space. These were different kinds of stories with depth and originality where you could tell any kind of tale you wanted. This is when the concept of Rogue Destiny first entered my consciousness.

The original story idea I had for Rogue Destiny was this mysterious shapeshifter hiding out on a pirate ship inside a trashy, bodice-ripping, romantic pirate novel. What the shapeshifter was doing there, I had no idea. Who he was and why he was hiding was unknown to me. But that visual of a skinny little shapeshifter pretending to be this muscular Fabio hunk (google it) with his thick, flowing hair and a sword at his side was too good to ignore.

I wrote and drew pages for this story inside my head. I knew this was something different and original from everything else out there. But something did not work with the way I was telling it. I rewrote and redrew new pages, but still the story was not coming out in the way it was in my head. But instead of abandoning it like everything else I had ever created, I knew there was something there at its core, something special that needed to be explored further. About that time a friend of mine asked me to join her writing group. I had written prose before, but nothing serious and definitely nothing any good. Maybe Rogue Destiny was a prose novel instead of a graphic novel.

Fast forward many years. My first novel of Rogue Destiny is now finished and is getting ready for an October 2021 release on Amazon. The second book in the trilogy is almost through its first draft and should be released in spring 2022. The third book will be out soon after that.

So tell your friends and family that Rogue Destiny will soon be out there for public consumption and if they love epic fantasy, have them subscribe to my newsletter!

The plot of the first book has no pirates, or any bodice-ripping of any kind, but it is still something I think fans of epic fantasy will enjoy. That first story with the pirates is still unfinished, but I promise it will see the light of day eventually.

I’m not in my twenties, or even my thirties, anymore, but the years have been kind to me. I sit here today, somewhat older, but not any wiser. I have just completed my first novel and that is indeed something special.

Now I get to do what I have dreamt of doing since I was sixteen. I get to create imaginary worlds of unlimited imagination and throw them out there for the world to see. It will be exciting, it will be cathartic, to see what’s ahead this little project.

So raise a glass to never giving up on your dreams, whatever they may be!

Be nice. Stay awesome,

Paul