Well, somehow it’s been three years now since I began writing fiction full-time. I’ve learned much during this time, like how to piece together a bunch of disparate ideas into a seamless plot.
But mostly, I’ve learned that a good novel is actually a conversation between two people — the writer and the reader. To me, that’s the magic of fiction, and of storytelling. And it’s what I try to achieve in my books.
My writing career really began some twenty-five-or-more years ago when I first had an inkling of what would eventually become Elthea’s Realm.
I would write snippets of it through the years, taking an hour before going to bed at night to type a couple of paragraphs. Little remained of those rough drafts by the time I sat down to write the book in earnest. But there was enough for me to know that I never deviated from my original idea of writing an epic story in a faraway place with characters struggling to overcome overwhelming odds.
While I’m looking back, you should know that long before I became a writer, I was a reader. My love of books began in my childhood. From the moment I discovered that different worlds lived within the text on pages, I was hooked.
The first book I ever read, which at the time I had considered an adult book, was a story about the adventures of Robin Hood, followed shortly by Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne. In the decades that followed, I never strayed very far from reading about places so very different from our own, and characters who were challenged by events that were out of their control.
That’s what I write about. And although my books are fiction, I’ve discovered that writing a book is about transferring something so real that everyone who reads it becomes a participant in the experience of the characters.
Every time a reader tells me or writes a review about how much he or she loved Elthea’s Realm, or my second book, Elthea’s Gambit, I know I’ve accomplished my goal. I’ve connected with you, the reader.
I am thankful to every person who opens Elthea’s Realm and Elthea’s Gambit, lets the magic of another world surround them, and brings the members of The Utopia Project back to life.
With sincere gratitude,
John