When I was a child, my father spent many hours at our kitchen table, writing a book. I watched him. He had boxes of notebooks piling up, and more than that, he filled every empty crevice in those boxes with napkins that he wrote notes on. It was quite a hectic mess, but he never stopped writing except to play solitaire occasionally.

He had the goal of becoming published, but never submitted any of it. I picked up on this passion. I wrote small things, mostly inspired by the fantasy games that I played.

Then, at the age of 19, I came home from work. We were living in the country near Tyler, Texas, which was a heavily wooded area where we owned around 20 acres. I went straight to bed that night, only saying goodnight to my step-mother. I wanted to say goodnight to my father as well, but he was already in bed.

Not more than an hour later, my step-mother came bursting into my room to tell me that my father had passed away. He suffered from congestive heart failure, and though this news was not unexpected, it was a very painful time. I’m having a hard time writing this, even now.

That same night, I found his journal sitting on the coffee table right in front of my father’s chair. Curious to see his last entry, I flipped it to the last page. Scrawled on the first line and on a page of its own, there was the message . . .

“Please write more. . . .”

I feel, more than anything, that my father knew his end was coming, and that his last message was for me.

~ Michael C. Sahd

 

Many writers will share that real life experiences inspire the tales they tell. Many, myself included, scoff (or have scoffed) at such a statement; telling themselves, “My life isn’t nearly so interesting.” What I have learned, however, is that this is rarely the case. Experiences take place daily, and though they may be mundane to you, they won’t be after “enhancing” them.

Just the other day, I took a trip to the local library to find the second book to the Septimus Heap series. I, of course, found Angie Sage’s books fairly quickly, and although they had many of her books, the one I wanted was not on the shelf. Naturally, I asked the librarians to see if it was checked out. It wasn’t.

I informed the lady at the counter that I had looked and it wasn’t there; she responded by telling me to look around, because people don’t always put them back in the right place. A little disheartened, I went back to look again (I had already looked around the nearby shelves, duh). After not finding it, I went back to the librarians for help. Instead of helping, they shrugged and said it could be anywhere. I left, rather annoyed by their lack of help.

However, the librarians were interesting characters, and a version of this scene has already inserted into my next story with Damian. I have changed many of the details and spiced it up a bit, but the entire scene is inspired by this short interaction.

Your experience doesn’t need to be Hollywood material. Just the smallest interaction, large enough to catch your attention, but not much more than that, can turn into a scene in your book. Take notes, make a voice memo, or just tell someone about it, and you will be able to get it down on paper. Embellishing the experience into an interesting scene is what makes you a writer.
And no . . . I still have not found the second book to the Septimus Heap series.

Septimus Heap, Book Two: Flyte by [Sage, Angie]

A vapid work week has created a holy grail of the weekends. Time seems to be tied up in the trappings of a working-class American’s struggle to survive, and trivial pursuits in entertainment. Not a bad life when my marvelous family is stirred into the mixture.

Just this morning, while listening to the radio, I zipped through traffic, driving the same route I drive every Monday through Friday. Of course, I could ramble on about the depressing state of affairs I heard on the radio, plaguing our country at the moment, but if you don’t already know, then I wouldn’t be so cruel as to burst your bubble. Rather, congratulations on successfully isolating yourself from these affairs.

I must admit that I find it difficult not to complain about all the banal trappings of my professional existence, but that is not why I am here. The true purpose of this blog is to escape the mundane reality of work. To keep my imagination flowing through my fingers like Harold with his purple crayon.

Using Amazon, I will start publishing my stories, and I will be advertising and discussing them here. The first one will be called Assassin Marked, set into a fictional not-too-distant future.

As time passes, my goal is to fill this blog with many published stories and ideas. The blog will not have a definitive goal, but rather, I plan on letting it morph with my ideas as I come to them.

~ Michael C. Sahd