T.M. Shannon

Hi everyone,

Well, I do have to say, my website is doing well with over 3000 views in the last week! I blame my boosted post on Facebook, decided I’d add India to the wide audience I chased, and got a tonne of views from India.

Good, right? I can’t complain the traffic. But pretty much all my views were from India, barely any visitors from the other countries I pegged – Australia, New Zealand, the US, UK and Ireland, South Africa…

But I’ve planned a response, though it might mean less views, I’m going to streamline to two countries a post; that, and chase down other authors and bloggers to follow and build a network – small strides at the moment.

Yet, I’ve gained 17 new followers on FB (need to find more on Insta, too). Woo hoo I suppose? Sure, why not?! But that aside, I promised to go into how and why I became an author. Just had to segue into it, so here goes.

An Early Reader

My mum told me I used to imitate my dad, lying stomach down on the floor reading the newspaper (remember those?), pointing things out, and talking about things that interested me.

It seemed to slip on my way to school, I needed speech therapy for a time, and I was all about picture books – Where the Wild Things Are was interesting, if a little frightening. I got a sci-fi book about crashed spaceships at one stage – but again, for the pictures.

Eventually, courtesy of classroom activities, there was reading, and I frequented the library for something new to read.

Writing was also a huge part, and in years 2 and 3 I had the most words for Look, Cover, Write, Check, though my handwriting in year 4 and my dislike of cursive/running writing denied me a “pen license”

Mum just gave me pens in year five and told me to say I had one. Thanks, Mum

Reading would end up becoming an escape, and after a second change of schools we read The Silver Sword – and because I was hooked after one episode, I said to the teacher, “I wonder what happens to Joseph next.”

She did the best thing – gave me the book to read at home, and I banned from providing spoilers, a charge I took seriously. Just reading that book made my week, even if the story was ultimately about a letter opener.

Fast forward through trauma, school bullying, reading was my escape, and soon enough I wrote own escapes – horrendous excuses for rudimentary lesbian porn, but I outgrew it, and would entertain stories at will, write things down, but never get anywhere.

Come the end of High School, I had read the library’s entire selection of Wilbur Smith, Clive Cussler (Dirk Pitt is part James Bond, part Indiana Jones, and part MacGuyver, what a combo!), and even read Robert Ludlum’s The Scorpio Illusion – and treated to a mad body count.

I was hooked on books, and I’ve read a great number of things since, including delving back into Shakespeare and loving Hamlet and Othello, especially loving not having to write an essay (hate, hate, hate).

A Budding Author

Naturally, English classes meant studying books, Shakespeare (I’ll let you guess how much I loved MacBeth), learning three-act structure, seeing how characters interacted and communicated.

English also meant free reading, and I delved into Catch-22, though some of it went over my head and I didn’t always get it – like only being able to see Major Major Major Major when he wasn’t in.

It’s only one of three classics I’ve read, the others Nineteen Eighty Four and about 75% of Moby Dick (ugh, Melvin, stop categorising whales and get to Moby Dick! Where’s your sheer brilliance with Queequeg?!).

But I digress.

But I loved creative writing. Still a part of the year 10 curriculum and School Certificate (though it went the way of the dodo), and I wrote an escape from a Nineteen Eighty-Four world for my trial certificate.

Grossly derivative? Hell yeah. Inspired? You bet.

Butit would be a while before I had a book to call finished, as terrible and contrived as it was – plus violent, sexual, with an entire flight sequence timed to Fear Factory’s Zero Signal. Almost like I was writing a movie…

A Watcher and a sort-of Gamer

I wouldn’t go far not saying something about countless movies and TV shows watched, not to mention the few story-driven games I’ve played.

Star Wars, The Hunt for Red October, Star Trek 4, The Never-Ending Story, The Lord of the Rings (yes, it got me to the books), just to name a few. Then my halting foray into AD&D with The Stone Prophet, Halo, and hitting The Elder Scrolls III – Morrowind, again just to name a few.

These and books were my true writing lessons, understanding the monomyth without even picking up Joseph Campbell, building tension and payoffs, dialogue that got to the point and kept conversations or going, ideas of extra-special knights, fancy swords, and that sci-fi story.

Total self-teaching, no expensive classes, just absorption of media. Plus enjoying the C.R.A.P. out of things, either lost to the world in Vvardenfel (goodbye one relationship where I was a rather unhealthy partner), or following along the foibles of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewy, R2, and 3PO.

Yes, I regret the trap, but not what I got out of it.

Without books, movies, games, I wouldn’t be in the final act of a story that’s taken 10 years to write (hopefully the next won’t take as long!).

The First Forays

I put my sci-fi onto paper first, loved the story, the greatest thing since sliced bread, which by all standards was a hot steaming pile of what the dog did. I never had the guts to send to an agent (for the best), but just knowing my words were on said paper was a resounding success.

I started on the second episode… And so I fell into an unpublished doldrum, losing way despite the series planned. The project has been shelved for years now, but plagued here and there, I’ve found an opening to dust the idea off, and I’m letting it simmer away on the back burner.

A mid-psychosis recovery idea led me to trying to unleash a horrible spelling error on an unsuspecting agent. It was rejected. Dragons, barbarians, magic conspired in me nonetheless, and it was that, and a story about good barbarians fighting evil Christians took root.

Nothing became of it other than ideas, and they would return, in between an idea for a role playing game, first a half-hearted effort, then a heroic adventure where the player would start out small but end up seven feet tall with eye fire and lightning flatulence through their deeds.

This would take a serious turn post the relationship I lost over a Bethesda game. I had no ability to make my own videogame, I’d been kicked out of home before I could start 4^th level Computing Studies (programming), and I was stuck at this idea of a lowly character rising to heroism.

Which is when it hit me. I couldn’t make a game, but I could write that story. Six years later, I dared to self-publish.

An Actual Book

It’s good, there’s a lot of action, a lot of proper slow-burn fantasy, though light by LOTR terms, destiny and elves intertwined. It has countless flaws such as italics for emphasis and lots of exclamation marks, but oh well.

I even received 4-star reviews, and was delighted to be called Mr. Shannon when I asked a star-rater only what they thought of the book. I had kissed success – and a horrible review I defended like a mother her newborn, much to my embarrassment and serve of humble pie.

The stage was set, and while the book is off the menu at the moment (I’m planning to update to my newer style and voice), a chapter was praised for its showing not telling, I was praised for dialogue – it’s my strong point.

One chance reader even dared to say it was well-written – I write at a Year 8 language level, with fancy words interspersed either misused, used perfectly, or dragged out of a thesaurus.

No best-seller, only reviews on Goodreads, the cover a cheap nothing put together on Kindle Direct Publishing, there was no denying I was an author. 6 years from go to whoa, I think it’s fair to use the title.

And knowing I’ll get a fresh version out of it, is enough to view it with pride. This time no angries with the reviewer.

The Current Project

10 years is a long time, and so much has changed in my life.

It began as a would-be masturbatory fantasy, a younger guy helping an older divorcee grow. I didn’t go anywhere with it, and it was just an idea left in the recesses of my mind.

I was in a relationship with a cis woman, we had a kid, but I was closeted, no outlet to live my authentically-bisexual self, not to mention the two entertainments were met with sadness that just shut me up even more.

I was painted in a corner with two options – walk over the paint or jump out the window. I had to have the positive outlet, and my only search led me to a website arguing that to be bisexual, I had to have sex with men on the side of a female partner to prove it.

Cruise lounges were a world away from me, and I believe in commitment, no open relationships. And so that furtive idea would be my saviour, character names put down on paper, a rough outline since put together.

Then, I laughed my heart out realising that, after writing a bloody fantasy with a 20-strong bodycount, I was sitting down to a zero-deaths love story.

A 90’s dance megamix my first muse, a character with a name I’d used in my fantasy and swapped around sat entranced by a woman stuck on her phone, constantly flicking her hair over her ear.

The Future Awaits

Well, that’s about it. I’m still several chapters from the end of re-writing, cutting a lot out and saving it elsewhere for a future follow-on, and I’m looking forward to metaphorically writing The End.

Then it’s off to an editor once I’ve combed through it (and when there’s availability), there’s a professional cover needed, and I suppose I better ship it off for some reviews because that does help books sell.

Needless to say, I’m looking forward to shipping the baby off. Many darlings have died, and many more are getting shunted out to that spare file I have. And thanks to the screen reader (it’s limited so awesome for line editing, and picking out typos), I have a voice to read it back to me.

I’ve really enjoyed writing this post, and I feel pride growing already. Soon as the dust has settled post cover launch, and final run-through, Three Ways will be yours to enjoy, and mine to hopefully retire!

I wish. I like my work.

Thank you for reading, feel free to throw your comments below, and if you’re up for a read, here’s the first half of Three Ways on Kindle from 99 cents.

It’s going to be a more realistic, less “I’m self-published” price when I release in full (besides, Amazon now does Print on Demand hardcovers), but I’m already excited to present it as soon as I can.

Thanks, and have a good one!

T. M.