Dexter C. Herron
The impossibility is our specialty, miracles at half price.
So, tell us about yourself. First, self pontification is not my forte. Neither is grammar, or proper use of big words like, 'Pontification'. So please forgive my mutilation of the English language, which you may not have guessed, is my mother tongue. I've taken nine years of Spanish One so it's safe to say that English is my only tongue. I can order a Pizza and a beer in four different languages, tho, so I at least have the emergency basics down. I can also ask for a lawyer and demand to be taken to the American Embassy in multiple languages as well. After that? I figure anyone can understand English if you speak it slowly and loudly enough.
Not that I have much chance to use my pan-global chameleon skills around here. Sure I live in the shadow of the world's largest casino, but I never go there. I never go many places since leaving the Marine Corps. I've eaten ice cream in Red Square One, listened to the echo of the halls of the Forbidden Palace, explored Nazi torture chambers in Zabreb and was once kicked off a golf course by the King of Morocco. One of his aides, actually. I've never met the king, but I did meet his daughter.
I watched Russian tanks cross the 48th parallel, the sun set in the land of the Rising Sun, and the sun rise over the Sahara. I got wasted with Australians in the Philippians, blitzed on Ouzo in Taipei and lost to an East German in a drinking contest that I didn't know I was in. I've stood on the ramparts of a Crusader's fortress, slept in a Transylvanian hotel and talked about family with General Colin Powell.
Powell: So, we're related?
Me: My father's older sister is married to your first cousin, General.
Powell: So what does that make us?
Me: Absolutely nothing, sir!
Ah, but that was then. Now, I stay at home. I like home. It's a very nice home. I'm a police officer in a nice town. I have a wonderful wife, 4 cats, three ferrets and a fish. A blue Damsel. That's Kitten Rose in the picture above. She's not so much a kitten anymore. She's 16 pounds of cat who can't ride on my shoulder anymore, but she's content to sit in my lap and cover me with cat hair.
I'm a Hobbit. I live in a Shire and I see no reason to leave it anymore. Adventure only makes one late for supper.
The most I get out is when I'm doing stuff for the Society for Creative Anachronism. A medieval recreation/recreation group. We live in the past. We fight and eat and dance. My persona is 11th century Japanese.
So why is this illiterate, beer guzzling, non-Spanish speaking, former Marine, samurai Hobbit writing books?
For the dream. I've been doing it for some time now. I think my first story was when I was nine years old. It wasn't very good, but it was short. My second I can't remember when I started it, but it was novel length. I made it all the way to the last chapter and realized that it sucked and stopped there. I wrote some adventure stories, and stuff based on my Dungeons and Dragons characters. I then began a full sized novel and went all the way to the climactic end. It was the predecessor to Knight of Chaos and tells how Craig Tyrone was sucked into this strange world of monsters and mayhem.
Yeah, it sucked. It's in the closet where I can't look at it because of it's blinding sucking aura. I never even gave it a title.
But the drive was still there. Stories, characters, adventures, so much wanting to escape!
I began Knight of Chaos along with two other novel length works. One dead-ended quickly. The other I wrestled with, loved the characters and premise, but found it lacking in direction. Knight of Chaos, however, had so much there that I struggled to keep it from snowballing. It was going to be huge. I figured early on that I lot of the story would not be told. Everyone always asks if there is a prequel. There isn't. At least one that I wrote.
Characters for me can be very real and even though I don't write their stories, they are still alive and going about their daily business. Some of their stories can be told, but most times not. Sometimes the stories are thrilling, but the outcome predictable and inevitable. Such as the story when Craig Tyrone is knighted for re-inventing the flush toilet. It's sorta funny, but the ending is, well, pointless and partially plagiaristic. I didn't plan it that way. Craig told me the story and I told him it had been done before. Craig said, "King Monsterbelly was so proud to be the first one to use it, he had a plaque made of gold mounted on the wall above it. He had it taken down when he discovered that Roc the Dragonslayer and saved his crap in a pile in the backyard for three weeks so he could back date his claim to be the first to use the thing." Sorry, done before. "Oh, and what about the time the Hothering, Slothering, Wanderblest beast complete with Horro-Shred option and Dual Turbo ate my wrist watch? You could tell that story." Dude, I think it's a cute story, but no one else would care.
See what I go through?
I didn't know how Knight of Chaos would end when I began it. I was driven to write it a quickly as I could because I was dying to see what happened next. I don't tell a story. My characters tell me. I have to wait for the story to unfold just as much as you do. Drives me nuts sometimes.
But Knight of Chaos was good. Different from the crap that I had written before. If I don't think it's worth your time to read it, I won't show it to you. Knight of Chaos was not only good enough for others to read, but it was good enough to publish.
My second novel, Law of Shadows is a complete break from Sword and Sorcery. Law of Shadows in about cops in the future. The hardest part to writing about cops was to make it understandable to everyone. Cops have their own sense of humor. What's funny to a cop, isn't funny to anyone sane. Like this, I once said to my sergeant. "Looks like he accidentally shot himself while giving his gun a blow job." My Sergeant did a spit take and we laughed at this for two weeks.
Also the technical jargon can bog down a story. An A-44 form is important stuff to us, but not so much to anyone else. Unless you've been pinched for 14-227a. Then you'll care about that A-44. Because what's on the A-44 can determine whether or not you'll be 14-215 for three to six months.
Police investigations can take months even if their hot. They smolder for a while then bang! Kick open the door, grab the suspect, make him breathe carpet while you cuff him, then haul him off to the slammer. Cop novels can be tricky, but Law of Shadows is good and I hope to see it on the shelves someday.
My current novel, Shard's Thugs began as a short story. When I started writing it, I had no idea what it was and what it was about. Imagine that! I had planned it to be a spoof on Bernard Cornwell's, Sharpe's Rifles. But it didn't turn out that way. Remember when I mentioned that I don't tell the story? I met Shard in the second paragraph and I don't know who he was until the third paragraph when he mentioned that he was a goblin. This wasn't the story I had planned at all! With horror I realized that I was on the wrong side! Goblins are evil! Aren't they? Well, they don't think so and as the story grew into a novel, I came to understand them a little better. They aren't evil at all. Just amazingly stupid.
And stupid is funny.
Shard told me a different story than the one that I was thinking of, and what a story it was!
Shard's Thugs is an action packed rollicking adventure that has been described as the funniest thing ever. I did a spit take during the edit. Really!
Well, life goes on and I'm gonna go eat. If you want to get a hold of me, send me an e-mail.
If you would like an autographed copy of Knight of Chaos, you can send $17.00 dollars (American dollars) to me. It's $14.50 for the book and $2.50 to mail it. Also, let me know who you want it signed too.
Dexter Herron
49 Mystic Rd
North Stonington CT 06359