I was a bright eyed blonde haired youngster, and I always had a vivid imagination. Once I started school in 1969, this vivid imagination handicapped me in an organized class. I was always being distracted by everything around me, and for that reason I found it very hard to concentrate. Unintentionally, I was very disruptive in class, a trait that followed me from kindergarten right up to grade 8.
But I never found it hard to create. I drew, I doodled, and I kept myself busy while the teacher tried to teach! About 1973, at the age of 9, I developed some cartoon- like characters I dubbed "The Silly Birds." These cool little characters ended up in the margins of all my notebooks. But having a very short attention span, I soon put that project on hold to move onto something else. (The author plans to publish the first Silly Birds book in the near future - the manuscript was recently (June 2010) entered into a contest.)
Model building became my next passion, and over the next ten years I built hundreds of the plastic kits. In 1975, my family and I moved from the city of London to a farm located near Ailsa Craig. It was a great place in which to grow. Here I continued to write, doodle, and draw. In 1978 I actually won an art contest for an abstract piece that I had painted. (The painting was a lark, figures it would win a prize) My father and I attended a ceremony where I was given an award. Unfortunately both the piece of art and the ribbon are long gone.
I did enjoy reading though, my favorite authors in public school were Bill Peet, Richard Scarry, E.B. White and Enid Blyton. Later in High School I read Richard Adams, Thomas Tryon, Robin Cook, Margaret Laurence, E.L. Doctorow and O.T. Nelson. I also listened to books. My cousin Mike and I used to spend hours listening to books on tape. The one that stands out the most was "Catch 22". (Mike is visually impaired)
For whatever reason, it wasn't until High School that I decided that I wanted to write. I loved to read, and I loved movies. In grade 9 and 10 I began to get all kinds of original ideas. As I sat in class, trying to tune the teacher out, I began to work on these story ideas, developing plots and characters.
In 1982, "Knossos: The Last Years," was my first fully developed story. It was based on the mythology of Knosses, and consisted of a 20 page treatment. There were also many other stories that were fragmented ideas that had a title and some notes.
By the time I left High School in June of 1983, I had 25 different original ideas. I think at the time they were ideas for movies, regardless, I still lacked the discipline and self-control I needed to actually sit down and write.
During the summer of 1983 I read aloud my story outline for an original film called "Cop: The Sensulators-Book One" to a group of friends, who received the story well. At this time however my energies were scattered, I wanted to write scripts and lyrics, as well as develope my relationship with my girlfriend, who became my first wife. There was also work too. I ended up quitting high school to work, earning my grade 12 diploma through several correspondence courses.
I was able to work on my writing more when I attended college in 1984. My major was Film Production, and I was able to work on scripts for my original ideas. These stories were "Cop: The Sensulators- Book One," "Serious Religion," "By the Book," and "Shoulder to Shoulder."
In 1985, "Shoulder to Shoulder" was made into a short film, which I directed. This film premiered in April 1985 at the college film festival, and was also shown on the Movie Channel several times over 1987. I plan to get my college films up on Youtube very soon, so you can look forward to that!
I next got involved in music. I sang and wrote for several bands from 1993 to 2001. In 2002-03 I also did a stint in stand-up comedy, actually making more money in one year of comedy than I did in ten years of music!
Back in my teens I had become interested in my family history, and began to research my family tree beginning in December 1981. In 1994 I co-wrote a book on the Ryerse-Ryerson Family, and since then I have also done many public speaking engagements. I have spoken on Family Research as well as Small Business. (I worked in retail sales in Woodstock from 1992-2002) I'm looking forward to speaking to students about writing, as I've done once so far.
However, I still continued to get story ideas, and I entered several local short story contests. I tried to stay focused, and in March 1997 I began my first novel, "Travelogue". The idea for the book came to me in a dream in the fall of 1996.
Travelogue would end up taking me almost 10 years to write and edit. As of July 2010, I have now published 7 novels. For my next writing projects I will be able to pick and choose, since I now have accumulated upwards of 80 original ideas!
My newest side project was writing some of the liner notes for the upcoming re-issue of the 1979 film 'Caligula.' I'm very excited by this! Have a look at the 2 1/2 pages that I wrote, HERE!
Carnal Wreckage (and 4 of my other books) have all been issued at Kindle, the Digital Reading Format sold at Amazon.com. Please have a look at Carnal Wreckage HERE.
I currently live in Woodstock, Ontario, with my cat, Jasper Alberta.
Unpublished Works
Public Speaking
