For roughly 45 years, I was far more accustomed to reading books than writing them. I’ve been an avid reader for most of my life, collecting stories in whatever format I could find and following my curiosity wherever it led. I always had an interest in writing, but between work, life, and everything else, it was something I thought I might get around to one day. I certainly never expected to take it up in my fifties.

Before fiction, most of the writing I did was far more practical: after-action reports, run reports, briefings, and assorted documentation. Maybe that explains why I’m drawn to people trying to make difficult decisions, dealing with consequences, and keeping things together when everything goes sideways.

I’ve carried radios, tools, and people’s lives in my hands. I’ve also spent a good part of my life building, fixing, making, and occasionally improvising with whatever I had available. All of that shapes how I approach a page, whether I’m writing fiction, reflecting on life, or chasing down an idea that won’t leave me alone. I like things that feel lived-in, practical, scarred, and human.

About two years ago, my wife Nikki and I were living a fairly nomadic life, traveling and camping as we searched for somewhere to put down roots. Somewhere between the miles, the campgrounds, and trying to work out what came next, I found myself bored, restless, listless, and wanting something productive to do.

One afternoon in northern Arizona, I overheard Nikki dictating some of our experiences to an AI assistant to organize her thoughts. Something clicked. After all those years spent reading other people’s stories, I decided to try writing one of my own, and the idea of using AI to help was a driving force. Having an appreciation for technology, I realized the potential of AI to help me find a writing path. I also knew the difference between AI-assisted writing and lazy, purely AI-generated slop!

I sat down and wrote a short story while camping in the woods with only a tablet, a hotspot, and my own crazy brain.

Nikki read it and immediately demanded, “I want more!”

So I wrote more.

Over the following year, that little feel-good story grew into my first book, Storm at the Verge. But finishing a book wasn’t the end of the experiment. It was the beginning of realizing that writing gave me somewhere to put decades of observations, experiences, ideas, and occasionally a few things I just needed to get off my chest.

Since then, my writing has wandered well beyond that first story. Fiction, essays, personal reflections, commentary—whatever happens to catch my attention and demands to be put into words. I’m not interested in being boxed into one genre, one universe, or one kind of subject. After spending so many years as a reader, I rather like having the freedom to see where writing takes me.

I’m not a full-time writer, and I don’t particularly intend to become one. I’m a reader who discovered, relatively late in life, that I had a few stories and other things of my own to tell. Writing has led me to a new way to create and share, regardless of the tools, supplies, or creative space I happen to have at my disposal at any given moment.

These days, Nikki and I are looking toward the next chapter of our lives, having decided to find new stomping grounds around San Antonio’s River Walk. Our cats remain part of the heart of our little family, and their presence, memory, and chaos still find their way into the work in one form or another.

At its core, much of what I write comes back to resilience, connection, curiosity, and the stubborn will to keep going.

One word after another.

One idea leading to the next.

One more unexpected road ahead.