The Warrior's StoneMatthew O. Duncan

I struggled in school. I just didn’t have a brain that could recall names and dates from history, understand math very well and spelling was always an uphill battle. It’s not that I didn’t try and I was smart enough. I could understand any concept, explain the how’s and why’s of politics, science, and history. I was as much into learning about planes, ships and tanks from WWI and WWII as I was into sci-fi shows like Star Wars and Star Trek. All my friends were nerds, but I couldn’t keep up with them academically.
I eventually found my niche in Theater. In my sophomore year in high school, I got a small part in the school play. It wasn’t much, but I had a couple of good lines that got the biggest laughs. To be on stage and have 250 people all explode with sudden laughter at something I said was incredible. I was hooked. Theater became my life and I set my goal on becoming an actor/director/screenwriter.
When I got to college I declared my major right away as Theater. Then I started auditioning for shows. That’s when I realized at five foot six and a less than athletic build, I was never going to get the lead in anything. Yet, the audition monologues I was writing for myself were getting attention. One of the seniors liked the one I did so much he suggested I expand it into a play. So, I did and entered it in the spring playwriting contest. It was meant for the upperclassmen who were taking the playwriting class, but it was open to everyone and I won 2nd place. The prise was to have the play produce the following semester. As thrilled as I was to be a performer on stage, it was ten times as thrilling to see my work that had come directly from my imagination, performed on stage for all the world to see. I had found something that I was good at and loved.
I continued to write plays throughout college and for some years after. Some won awards and some were produced on a local level, but I never made a career out of it and life went on. A part-time job turned into a full-time job, that turned into a career. I fell in love, got married, and had two sons. Writing went from a passion to a hobby. Then the great recession hit. I got laid off and couldn’t find a job. Things got bad financially. I watch the stress get to a lot of people and even tear some families apart. Luckily for me, I married the most wonderful person I have ever known. For my birthday she bought me a book. But not just any book. It was the Writers Market. A book I used to buy myself every year that had lists of publishers, writing contests, literary agents, and tips on how to sell your writing. With it, she gave me a message. “No matter how bad things get, I never want you to give up on your dreams.” That was the spark that made me pick up the pen and get back to work.
There was an idea that I had been playing around with for a long time. Both my wife and I had dreams of acting when we were younger and I had this idea for a movie that would bring together two characters that we each would most like to play. She was very much into medieval romance and I was into future sci-fi. So, I needed a story that would bring a magical princess together with a space fighter pilot. That sounds very cheesy, but the challenge was to come up with a story that seemed possible. At least as much as something like Battlestar Galactica or Brigadoon seems plausible.
I planned on writing it as a screenplay but didn’t have enough of the story in my mind to start writing it. So, I decided to write it out as a short story first, to use it as an outline, and then write the script. But when I had 44 pages and I wasn’t even a fraction through the story, I realized I was writing a book, and I was loving it. So, I kept going. After five months I had a complete first draft. I showed it to my wife who is my biggest fan and critic. She would not encourage me to show it to anyone if she didn’t believe it was any good. She knew my ego couldn’t take that. Better to get a soft rejection from her rather than a rude one from a producer or publisher. But she loved it. Then she pointed out that I needed to write it as a book and not like a play. There is a big difference and I had focused too much on dialogue and not enough on the description. She marked up every page with her suggestions and I went to work to improve my first novel. I also checked out best-selling books from the library in both print and on audio to study how successful writers applied their craft. I would study when my wife was editing my book. When she gave me her notes I would go through them and make revisions based on her suggestions and on the lessons I was learning. Two years and 12 drafts later I was ready to publish.
Now it’s seven years later, I have five published novels with more on the way. I still have to hold down a day job to pay the bills, but I starting to see a good income from my books. With luck, it should be my full-time career within a year or two.