Steven’s Comments (group member since Jan 22, 2008)

Steven’s comments from the The Reasons Why you wrote your book or books group.

Hi Diane, (Author of HIM) I've just read your profile. I sympathise with your background. My pet hate is men who are violent towards women. Unfortunately, my mother was a victim of this type of behaviour. A lot of it was witnessed by me as a very small child. I wrote about this in my first book and found it really difficult whilst writing as I practically relived the memories in my mind and found some of it quite emotional.

Re: Your book. It must of taken a lot of courage to put your memories down on paper. It couldn't have been easy.

Best Regards

Steven Preece
Author of
Amongst The Marines
and
Always A Marine

Thanks Patty. I do understand what you are saying as I'm currently studying Reiki and Psychic abilities, which I find intriguing. My learning experience in this area has taught me that maybe I was a little angry about my childhood for a lot of years after it. I certainly feel that it had a lot to do with the violent lifestyle I led as a marine and wrote about in my first book. Although I did walk into a violent culture at that time and undoubtedly adopted it as my own. But looking back now with a different mindset has helped me to understand those years.

See newspaper article published shortly after my second book was released.

http://archive.thisisthenortheast.co....

This time on, I continue to train in Ninjutsu, which is a martial art without aggression. It has helped me to spend my time living inside the crowds as just another face amongst them, rather than playing center stage. I wrote about this journey in my second book. Thankfully the fire that burned inside me for so long is now subdued and my mind is free from any outside influence.

These days I enjoy my time with my family and see everyday as a learning experience.

Many thanks for your kind responses Patty. I appreciate them.

Best Regards

Steven Preece
Author of
Amongst The Marines and
Always A Marine

Hi Patty, I find being compelled to write a story from the Highest Level, like you have been, absolutely amazing. I have read the synopsis for your book and liked what I read.

I personally was not compelled to write my books nor did I receive any messages to write them. However, I did receive dreams from my father, one in each book when he helped me in my time of need. At the time I found that quite strange because he was never really there for me as a child nor as an adult as he passed away quite young (49), but later in life when I needed him most, he was there, indirectly in those dreams. Strange I know, but true.

The ninjas I train with these days don't believe in coincidence, they believe things are meant to happen. One of them once told me that he believes I was meant to write my books and that my past, although at times excessive, was merely a learning curve for something better in life.

These years on, those words are starting to make sense to me.

Best Regards
Steven Preece
Author of
Amongst The Marines and
Always A Marine

That's a very positive reply Kelly. Thank You.

As a follow up to my two autobiographies I have recently completed a Military Action Adventure novel. There's a purpose behind this story too, which is to highlight the issues former soldiers have once they leave the military and also the fact that their specialist skills often go wasted when they can be put to better use. This novel was more difficult to write than writing my autobiographies. I knew what happened in them because they are based on my experiences. However, with a novel there's a lot of soul searching involved to put it all together.

Even with the novel I still found that a lot of my personal experiences came into play from time to time whilst writing it.

As you'll know getting a book published is by no means an easy task and unfortunately my current publisher only publishes none fiction, so for me and my novel the search starts again. Ces't La Vie.

So come on then guys (Authors) please join the discussion and lets hear why you wrote your stories. I'm sure there are many keen readers very interested in this kind of topic.

Best Regards

Steven Preeece
Author of Amongst The Marines
and
Always A Marine

WHY DID YOU WRITE YOUR BOOK OR BOOKS?

It is said, and I believe it to be true, that everybody has a book inside them. However, putting your story into print and getting your book published is undoubtedly a very difficult task.

That said for those who do get their books published, what was your reason for writing the book or books? Some people have visions of huge financial gains or even fame, but in reality only a handful of the many thousands of authors actually achieve this.

Well, now I've made the statement, I suppose I should give my reasons for putting my stories into print.

1st Book: AMONGST THE MARINES

As a kid, I had two war time heroes. These were Audy Murphy and John Wayne. I housed a childhood ambition to become a Marine when I grew up and pursued this as soon as I was old enough. However, what I didn't know then was the type of person that my chosen career would turn me into. Just after the Falklands War, I completed my basic training and was assigned to my first commando unit as a keen young 18 year old. Sadly, I received a very violent reception in the early weeks of my assignment when I realised I had walked into a very violent culture, at that time. It wasn't like that everywhere around the Marines' but it was where I was posted back then. From that time on I made myself a promise that I would never allow that to happen to me again. I would never cause trouble but would also never back down from those who brought it my way. My personality changed from friendly and easy going, to hard and unforgiving. Unfortunately, this was also reflected in my home life during times when I went home on leave. Eventually, this kind of behaviour led to me being courtmartialled, which I strangely managed to get away with. During the court case my father had died and my mother had unfortunately suffered a severe road traffic accident and was put into intensive care. Stangely, my father, although never really there for me as a child, came to me in a dream and told me that I would be found not guilty. Subsequently this was the verdict! Shortly after this a friend of mind, said that he felt I could write a book, so that's exactly what I did. I wrote it and put it into the cupboard for 12 years before I searched for a publisher for it.

After its release, it did cause some controversey and people who knew me at work started to look at me in a different light because of the content of the book.


2nd Book: ALWAYS A MARINE

Consequently, I wrote the sequal to explain the journey I underwent, the hardships I'd experienced and the path I followed to walk away from the violent past I'd led as a soldier. I even used it to explain why I wrote the first book. This part of my story covers the next 13 years after I left the military. I was still very much a Marine and being one wasn't just something I could switch off. My military approach was not always endearing to those around me and eventually I had to look for work abroad. Subsequently I got mixed up in all kinds of situations including fighting against a Foreign Legionairre in a Thai Boxing ring, a business scam, having gun shots fired at me on the border of Morocco and all kinds of other hair raising stuff. After some years I strangely found myself in the world of the Ninjas who view aggression as a sign of weakness.

By the time I'd reached the end of writing this book I knew my military frame of mind was behind me and at last I was able to move on with my life. This time on I see myself as being lucky to be able to put my stories into print and feel doing this was part of the much needed therapy I needed at that time.


Maybe my story is a little different t others. I imagine so.

So why did you guys write your book or books?

Kindest Regards

Steven Preece
Author of Amongst The Marines
And
Always A Marine