Marc's comments (member since Aug 17, 2008)

Marc's comments from the The Reasons Why you wrote your book or books group.

I get titles often come to me first, from a play on the words of a common phrase or something. My second book title is like that, A Warrior Made, based on the phrase 'a warrior born', which my hero most emphatically was not. The title of the first book, Unbinding the Stone, came to me at the end, from a scene in which he sees what appears to be a stone wrapped in vines all knotted together. The alternate title of that book was Hero Ascendant, which isn't as good. My short story titles, 'Bite Deep', 'Off the Map', 'Ex Libris', 'Chasing His Own Tale', 'Boys Will Be Boys', and my current SSIP, 'None So Blind', usually come to me as I'm coming up with the idea for a story, and often give it shape.

I write because I must. I didn't even think about getting my first book published until long after it was finished. The story grew on me, and the first book is only a part of the whole story, so I keep on writing. And there are other things that come up, stories and contests and requests and ideas I get from just about anywhere that I've never seen done before.

Publishers are very rarely the real winner, since every book that sells millions is balanced by hundreds of books that sell only hundreds.

I write to please me, to have a story that I want to read. Writing books for any other reason usually results in crappy books. What value is it to me as an author, to write a book I didn't like or enjoy? The only guaranteed winner is the author, if he writes a book that he wants to write. Why squander that?