Why Write anyway - What's the Use?

Why keep on beating the keys when no one seems to be reading and certainly not buying to a profitable degree? I suppose it takes a case of the 'can't help its'. When something is in my mind that won't go away (if it wouldn't land me in jail), I have to write it down to get some peace.

Have you had a child interrupt you over and over while you were trying to do something? You try to continue your task but the child persist. Finally, you answer just so you can get on with the business at hand. Love those children but sometimes they can be, shall I say continuous. So, you take care of their business so you can get back to your business. A story can be much like that. It starts as an idea that may even seem foolish. Then, it just builds until, like steam in a boiling pot, it must escape.

One of my favorite authors, Frank Peretti, writes wholesome Christian novels and I think he has a series now, greatly impressed me with his story of his early years and his first book. He had failed to get it published and finally tossed it in the garbage can. His wife rescued the book which later sold millions of copies. Someone believed in him. The editors did not, at first, but his wife did and sometimes one is enough.

I cannot write like Mister Peretti. Nor can I write like any of the other famous authors that I respect greatly. Like all writers, each of us must be true to ourselves even in the face of failure or criticism.

When I wrote Harvest 2050 AD which is a free add on to Preserved Intellect, I felt injured by the words in the book. To think that humanity could bend to such evil deeds insulted my faith in people. Is it not better to cry snake and avoid the bite than to wait until after the damage is done? I make my stories fiction in the hope that someday they do not become historical facts. These are stories of science taking things beyond moral boundaries. They are not long stories for I wished to leave the darkness of the pages as soon as possible.

Transient was an escape for me from the darkest side of mankind to, what we think of, as ordinary life. It is sad that ordinary must include the tragedies that engulfed some of the characters. In life, even adults need heroes. I know I certainly do. I don't mean a perfect person to look to, rather a person who maintains high standards even during adversity. Tommy Bookmark faced danger, loss, had to delay his dream and grew old while duty held him captive. Yet, he gripped his cross with determination and found joy along the way.

Suppose there are no rewards for spending the hours it takes to pull a story together. Suppose the dreadful task of checking and rechecking the work is a waste of time. Then is it a story that should not have been told? Perhaps, one day, that one person will find that one thought in my books that changes their life for the better. Even if I could quit writing, I think I would still drum out the stories for the hope that they will somehow make a difference. A good difference in some one's life.

Transient by me Milton J Southerland

I never went to writing school. It wasn't because I didn't want to. Life just kept me too busy and I do not regret spending my time providing for my family.

Writing, however, is something I love to do. I get involved in a story. I involve my wife in the story. We talk about the characters. When I am writing a story, I am standing with the characters (in my mind of course but it does not seem so). I go to sleep thinking about what might happen to them next. I hope they find their way. I even hope the bad guys reform and I don't have to kill them off. Of course, I'm in control of all this but not completely. As the story develops, certain things just seem right to do with the characters. Also, my wife loves some of the characters so much that she won't let me let anything happen to them. So, yes, my stories take me over for a while. I could not write horror stories because I would be right there being sucked into the abyss with my characters and that causes nightmares. It is bad enough when I am in a shootout.

Transient is such a story. I actually lived some of the things in this book. I know what it is like to clean out the barn and put the contents into the garden with my hands. I know what it is to hoe cotton until my hands would not straighten.

Leeuna Foster said of Transient: "I was so scared that Smog was going to shoot him (Tommy) there at the end - almost got mad at you." "I also loved the fact that everything was totally G rated. I hate to be reading a good story, then suddenly come upon a paragraph filled with 'cuss words' as we say here in the South." Then in a promotional page for Transient she wrote: "Milton's vivid imagery and his excellent use of dialogue pulls his readers into the book and makes them feel as though they re watching the scenes unfold instead of reading about them. His characters are so multi-dimensional they come to life on the pages."

Well I ain't no good at honkin' my own horn. I like the stories but I always feel that I should have done better. I always feel that I lost patience with the story and finished it too soon. It is the nature of life. We see other people at special times, good and sad, but they must go home and live the minutes of their life that we are not privy to. We can but tell the part of the story we know.

I hope you will buy the book and excuse my human faults and shortages in abilities. You don't necessarily have to love my style to love the characters. They are you and me and the people around us. Go here.

I am presently working on another book that I have been stuck on for several months but I finally got a direction and will continue as soon as my health allows me to think clearly for longer periods of time which is necessary to keep continuity in a story.