Creator of Worlds

This place is a tribute to a special person. Without him, I would never have taken my first step on the path to becoming a professional writer.

Cousin, friend, lifelong companion . . . Gene was always the first to read my stories. He gave as much input as he did criticism, and never failed to push me forward. It was he who told me, many years back, that I had what it took to be a good writer, if I was willing to work for it. I didn't believe him at the time. Who was I, after all? Just some random guy with silly ideas, same as anyone else. Gene disagreed. He called me a "creator of worlds," and reminded me that I'd been breathing life into fictional people and places since I was a child. He would know. He was there.

So I took a risk. On the chance he was right, I dedicated years of my life to improving my skills, studying, practicing, failing, and failing, and failing again. Failure became my friend, my teacher. Without it, I would never have learned to abandon writing in isolation. Of course Gene was always supportive, as were the others dearest to me, but I had to find writing colleagues, those with the courage and experience to help me expand my limits—iron sharpening iron. I wrote, I rewrote, and with a smile I embraced my old friend: Failure. Who would have thought writing well took so much time and effort?

More years passed. I moved in and out of critique groups, exploring the mystifying ways of the literary world. The genres, the tropes, the rules. Those brutal yet beautiful rules . . . as important to learn as they are to forget. Eventually I produced something worth reading, or at least something I wasn't embarrassed to share with Gene. He'd been waiting for so long. The draft was a mess, but he loved it anyway, told me it was the birth of a new world, our vision come to life.

I couldn't have been happier. I'd accomplished something I hadn't thought possible—an early milestone on an incredibly long road, but still a major milestone. I wasn't just the sum of my failures. I could do this. I had the skill, the resources, and the momentum. Nothing could derail me.

Or so I thought. Failure finds a way—my teacher had saved its cruelest lesson for last. About a week after Gene read my draft, he died. No point discussing how it happened, only that it was unexpected. Stress killed him, and the pain that accompanied it. I believe I had a part in adding to that pain. I'd gone years without sharing a story with him. I'd neglected him, along with the rest of my family, because of the mission he'd sent me out to accomplish: become a good writer or die trying.

He was the only one who died, though I think I came close a few times. It was the struggle of my life (so far) to learn how to keep going. Thankfully, as I discovered in the years prior, I knew to avoid doing it alone. But where did that leave me? All our plans, our dreams, gone in a blink . . . No. The worlds we envisioned are still in my head, awaiting their creation. And what greater motivation could a writer have? If I bring my stories to life, I bring him to life, because a part of him exists in all of them.

* * * * *

The above image shows a pair of Edelweiss overlooking the Alps. The flower's German name translates to "noble white." In other nations, it's known as the Star of the Alps. This flower, symbolizing the mythical daring of those who climb cliffs to try to pick it, meant a great deal to Gene and me. I couldn't find any to display at his funeral, but I offer these to him now. Rest easy, my friend. Our stars will never fall.