B. Jeffrey was born and raised in a typical Midwestern town; a modest city on a freshwater bay, split in two by a wandering river. The future author grew up on the East Side—a much more sophisticated and enlightened garden patch compared to the dreadful and ever-irksome West Side, whose inhabitants found joy in stoking a polar rivalry in any activity. Forays across the bridge into the dark lands were necessary, however, as the sandy beaches of the bay resided in the west, and unprecedented summer socializing activities required the catalysts of sun, sand, scantily-clad youths, and water frolicking. Obviously, this took place before The Curse of the Internet and All Devices Mobile relegated every sub-adult to constant couch-potatoism, FOMO-infection, and fear of daylight. Ah, the good ol’ days of fresh air and using one’s imagination.
As with most would-be authors, B. occupied any spare time with eyes buried in a book. Many a late night was spent next to a bedside lamp, with earmuff headphones conveying the best music the ‘80’s had to offer, while The Greats conjured fantasy images of Mages and Orcs and Hobbits and Elves, of swords and dungeons and dragons and axes wielded by bearded and blustery Dwarves. And from an innocent age of thirteen, to be an author was ever the dream.
But then… reality. College. Graduation. The Real World.
Dreams don’t pay bills. Authentic, respectable, IRS-recognized jobs do. So the dream was bundled and boxed and stored under the bed, then in the closet, then moved to the garage, then lost by a moving van and the ravages of time. It sank into the abyss of forfeited pastimes unnecessary for survival of the adult parental species with obligations of mortgages, and bills, and taxes, and putting edible food on the table for the hungry little mouths that arrived unexpectedly into the household, and for which the law frowned upon neglecting.
Until…
…the first daughter moved away to college. Huzzah! With a bit of extra time in the schedule, an itch began in the deepest, dustiest depths of the author’s mind. A tickle of a tale that pulled itself, tooth-and-nail, through its coffin, out of the dark quagmire to sit just at the outer edges of daylight and consciousness. And there it squatted, every once in a while shooting spitballs to the front of the class where they stuck to the chalkboard of the author’s mind, interrupting the daily drudgery of to-do’s, manager meetings, grocery-gettings, drivings-to-and-fro, and the taking out of the garbage. (What? Is it Tuesday already? I thought it was Monday! Well, we can make it one more week without a trash pickup. Eight bags on top of the bin is normal.)
But one day, when the spitballs had increased their mass ten-fold and their adhesion had waned, or the to-do’s had run out of space on the chalkboard and just bumped into the lumpy masses causing a dislodgement, there came a squelching and a freeing and a plopping into the hippocampus of the author’s brain. And that day, The Sullivan Chronicles were born…
Stay tuned for future tales.
The Sullivan Chronicles 