I introduced myself to the world on September 7th, 1969, in Norfolk, Virginia. You could say I made a huge impression on my first day weighing in at over 10 pounds. I believe only a mother could appreciate the significance of that number. To this day, I still apologize to mine. In my defense, I had things to do and couldn’t wait around to grow normally like other babies with more polite birth weights.

I grew up in a Navy family and moved countless times throughout my childhood. I learned to make friends quickly at an early age, but the flip side is they were gone just as fast. There were many times I’d walk up to a buddy’s front door in military housing only to find they moved the week before. A week later, I’d be visiting the same door with a new buddy behind it. A year later, my buddy was probably standing at mine while I was halfway to my dad’s next duty station. And that’s basically how it went until I attended high school in Georgia. The oldest friend I have is from my junior year. I wonder how many I would’ve kept in touch with if we had cell phones or Facebook back in the day.

I followed in my father’s footsteps and joined the Navy after school. I was in naval intelligence and spent most of my tour with the aircraft carrier U.S.S. John F. Kennedy. Oh, the stories popping into my head. Many of which you will never, ever hear from me for both legal and moral reasons. As young men sowing our oats, the U.S. government thought it was a good idea to send us to exotic countries where we didn’t speak most of the languages and knew fewer of their laws.

The travel was phenomenal (Phenomenal!) The experiences abroad were equally fantastic. We’d bike over breathtaking coastal roads along the French Rivera one week, crawl through the pyramids at Giza the next, and then finish the month having lunch by an indescribably beautiful fountain in Rome. Did I mention the travel was phenomenal?

After I finished my first tour with the Navy, I took a midnight train back to Georgia. I had several odd jobs including bounty hunting and cracking heads at a college bar. (Both of those selections making it difficult to regain my security clearance when I decided to return to the Navy after 9/11.) But the career sparks didn’t fly until a helicopter did while I was employed by a downtown Atlanta hospital. I simply knew I wanted to be a part of whatever it was they were doing. 15 years into that career, I’ve decided to add the title of novelist to my business card.

I finished my first novel in February of 2010. It was huge at well over 400 pages. It’s also when I learned the first difficult lesson of my writing career. Sometimes you just have to put a manuscript in a drawer and start over. I truly believe it’s what separates the novice from the professional. A novel isn’t your baby, it’s a product. And if you try and release a substandard product, the market will respond quickly, completely, and without mercy.

Two weeks after I closed the drawer and the excruciating pain of staring at another blank screen subsided, I started my next book “Abomination.” Three months later, I typed the last word. It’s simply a better product and something of which I’m proud to attach my name.

Production of “Abomination” was completed in early March and released on March 25th. It quickly moved up the Barnes & Noble ratings, and on it’s first day, reached #91 on the “Top 100 Bestsellers” list. It surpassed nearly all expectations of a debut novel. My second book, “Suffer”, will be released near the end of 2011 if we take the same publishing route as the first.

This is just the beginning of my writing life. It’s not what I do, it’s who I am. I am a writer.