You may have seen him at Barnes & Noble book signings, surround by fans and stacks of his work.
You probably saw him at the LTUE convention hob-nobbing with the likes of Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson.
And if you were there in April at the largest Comic Con EVER you should have seen him at his booth and on panels. He was hard to miss, right between all the professional cosplay girls and the crowded pre-release video game trailer - well before the Star Wars and Back to the Future booths.
If you missed your chance, he'll be doing it again at the groundbreaking premier Fantasy Con in July.
I consider myself extremely lucky to call him a close personal friend and to able to say we've played D&D together in his basement, my basement, even in conference rooms of the software giant Adobe.
It is my great pleasure to introduce my pen-to-page mentor, Jason King.
Who did you think I as talking about?
These two titles are available now, and he has at least 3 more books currently in the works as sequels to both.
At what age did you first start making up stories and putting them down on paper?
I wrote and illustrated my first books when I was five. I still have one of them. It was my stylish answer to Go-Bots, a cardboard hardback called Ror-Bots.
What was the title of your first (or favorite) work, or name of your main character, or plot synopsis?
My first feature length written work was a screenplay I wrote when I was sixteen called Descent. It’s a crime noir featuring a really smart, cool, and insane villain named Victor Reese. I’d like to update it and adapt into a novel someday.
Who is an author, or perhaps character, that inspires you? How so?
Brandon Sanderson of course. I love his work, and feel that I have a claim on him because he is a local author and a member of my faith……and because I have him trapped in my basement.
What keeps you motivated? How do you keep the words flowing when writers' block is more like writers' Hoover Dam?
Passion keeps me motivated. I don’t usually get writer’s block. My struggle is with depression. When I have a bout of it, I lose my desire to write even if I have plenty of ideas. Passion for the art helps me overcome that, and deadlines.
Do you believe in killing your characters and/or sparing your villains from the horrible death readers think they deserve?
My villains usually get their comeuppance, but often their defeat costs the life of one of my heroes.
How much of you do you inject into your characters?
I try to avoid it, but it inevitably happens, never intentionally. It depends on the character.
When you get that first inkling of a story idea, how do you polish it by developing characters, setting, plot, etc?
I day dream about it, listen to music, write down notes. Sometimes I outline.
Is there a classic work (book, film, music, etc.) from which you can extrapolate your own original story? For example, Beowulf, the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad and the Odyssey. Think in terms of Stephen King basing his Dark Tower series from Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came.
(This goes beyond the realm of mere fan fiction)
This will show just how uncultured I am, but I’d love to take the plot of Final Fantasy 6 and write it as a novel. It has a story that is too rich for a simple videogame.
Do you have a magnum opus?
Not yet. Although Valcoria may become that.
Do the good guys wear black? Do they always win?
In the long run, good always triumphs over evil in my stories. Do I have antiheroes? Is that what you mean? Sometimes, but they usually turn into full heroes by the end. I am very much about my heroes growing and becoming better people.
How do you deal with over-exuberant fans?
I would smile at them while calling security. Just kidding. I think you can harness their enthusiasm by turning them into evangelists for your work. Reward them and make them president of your fan club or something. From my experience as an over-exuberant fan, nothing is cooler than a friendly, down to earth author.
Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
An additional bit of info to speak to the value of his guidance, his 10 year old son just published his first book!
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