Cool story, bro. Tell it again.
In The Beginning...
Alright, so even as a little dude, I loved telling stories. When I was 5 years old, in kindergarten, my friend and I started working on a comic book-style story about a mutant, humanoid pizza from the planet Mars. His name was Pizza Man, obviously. We would take turns writing the story and drawing the pictures. At some point, I became obsessed with the character, and even after I had moved away and my friend and I had lost touch, I continued writing and drawing Pizza Man books. (PS, my friend, Dylan, and I did reconnect a few years ago and shared some laughs over our beloved childhood creation). I wrote dozens of stories about Pizza Man and his best friend, Al. Super action-packed adventures all over the galaxy. Unfortunately, I sort of lost interest in writing Pizza Man stories at around 14 years old. It wasn't until 11 years later that I decided to try writing a story again.
World Sick
Surface Tension is the first (and only, so far) book I've written in a trilogy called World Sick. I finished it in January 2017, but have yet to officially publish it as I have not edited it. I also don't know if I want to publish it as a solo book first, or wait until I have the full trilogy ready to go all at once. The best way to describe the process of writing this book is "I followed the rabbit." What started off as a 3-page plot for a video game idea quickly turned into a 328-page adventure, with outlines for another 2 books. If I were to give a brief synopsis of the book, it would go as follows:
In the future, not long from now, humanity is finally facing the consequences of our mistreatment of the earth. The story follows Woven, Co-Z, and Bongo, who, as children, were the first to have the dreams that would show many people around the world what was waiting for us all in the future; lies, corruption, and the end. The three protagonists of this story dedicate their lives to saving people from - and recruiting others who will join the fight against - the tyranny of the Virulent. Along the way, some bizarre secrets unfold about the earth and its ancient inhabitants, particularly those who live below its surface.
Please feel free to read the (raw and unedited) book in its entirety here.
Dynamic Stories
I recently wanted to make a little gift for my nieces and nephews, and the plan was to have it done by Christmas. I don't think I've ever finished a personal project in the time frame I had hoped for, so I've finally got it up and running about a month later. The idea is that a kid can customize their own character to either look like them or something silly and then the application would put their name and character into the story on the fly. Check it out and feel free to share it with your own kids and/or your friends with kids. I'd love to hear any and all feedback on it, so please reach out if you'd like to tell me something about the application, or suggest an improvement! I plan on adding more stories, but in the meantime, there is one story about dinosaurs in space.