I can divide my life as a writer into six stages, stretching over a period of close to 40 years.STAGE ONEDuring the 1970s, I wrote short stories for small-press magazines put out by fans of the science fiction and fantasy genres. Those genres always fascinated me, and there is something about them that causes an inordinate proportion of their readers to believe they can write, as well as read, “sf and f.” I was one of them, and I had stories published in magazines that paid in copies, and sometimes fractions of a cent per word. One of them famously paid one-tenth of a cent per word, meaning you had to write 10 words to make a penny! Writing for the “zines” was a good way of honing the craft, getting feedback and establishing the beginnings of a readership.From the beginning, my stories were based on African history, mythology and folklore, as opposed to the usual Celtic, Arthurian and Scandinavian underpinnings of most of modern fantasy, from Tolkein to Rowling. This stage culminated in 1979, when four of my stories were included in anthologies from major publishers in the United States. Most of them were about a larger-than-life black hero named Imaro.STAGE TWOThis was a short, but very productive, period. It lasted from 1980 to 1985. During that time, I made the progression from short stories to novels. When I was writing stories, it was almost inevitable that ultimately, I would write a novel. But I hesitated, because a novel seemed like such a huge, daunting proposition when it was a challenge to write at a shorter length. Finally, I took the plunge, basically stitching my first novel together from some of my short stories about Imaro. Three Imaro novels were published by DAW Books between 1981 and 1985. I also continued to get stories into anthologies. I wrote a fourth Imaro novel, and had started a fifth one, when the roof fell in.I learned a hard lesson then: it’s one thing to get published; marketing is something else altogether. Although my novels received kind words from the critics, and created some dedicated fans, they did not sell well. And so DAW declined to publish the fourth novel in the series, and no one else would, either. That brought Stage Two to a crashing halt.STAGE THREEThe lack of commercial success of my novels was depressing, and the experience of being dumped by my publisher might have derailed me completely. But by then, I was in a new stage, which lasted from the mid-1980s until the beginning of this decade. This was a period of diversification, during which I tried my hand at many different kinds of writing. I wrote several screenplays, two of which were produced, but were so awful I’m not going to name them. I will only say that the movies weren’t porn. I didn’t really take to screenwriting anyway, because it tends to be “writing by committee,” and I prefer to be a “committee of one.” I also had two radio plays produced by the CBC, which is the Canadian counterpart to the British BBC and the American PBS.For eleven years, I wrote a weekly political-opinion column in a local daily newspaper, and a collection of those columns was published in 1999. I also wrote two books on Nova Scotia’s African-Canadian history, and was one of four authors included in a fourth. During that time, I supported myself first by teaching in a community college, and then as a copy editor for the newspaper, before ultimately becoming the paper’s editorial writer. But at the back of my mind, I wanted to write novels again.STAGE FOURAnd that led to the next stage, in which I embarked on the writing of a multi-volume epic African-oriented fantasy saga called Abengoni, which is Tolkienian in scope, if not subject matter. I had earlier tried to get a publisher interested enough to pay me to write this one gigantic story that needs four books to be told, but while I got encouragement, I couldn’t get a commitment. So I had to do it the hard way: write all four books in my time away from the job, then try to get them published. These books took on a life of their own, and became a world into which I went when the news of the world, with which I had to deal on the job, became too depressing. My guess was that this stage would take up the rest of my writing life.STAGE FIVEThis stage came as a surprise, and it was really a rollercoaster ride. By the summer of 2003, I had written the first of the Abengoni novels and was three-quarters of the way through the second. I had also put my stories about a Black Amazon warrior named Dossouye together into a single volume, but couldn’t get a publisher interested. However, two Dossouye stories appeared in Sheree Thomas’s Dark Matter anthologies, so that gave me hope. But I thought it was going to be a long, hard road before I ever got another novel published. I never thought about trying to bring the Imaro novels out again, because one segment in them was too close to the Rwanda genocide – the novels were written more than 10 years before the Rwanda tragedy, but I still felt uncomfortable with that segment.In July of 2003, I received an e-mail from a young Australian named Benjamin Szumzkyj. Ben was an Imaro fan, and wanted to see the entire series in print. He told me about Night Shade, a small press based in the northwestern United States, which had published a great deal of sf and fantasy by authors I knew. I was about to tell Ben that I couldn’t do it because of the Rwanda problem, when it hit me that I could replace the Rwanda-like segment with something else. I contacted Night Shade, and they were enthusiastic about bringing Imaro back into print – the first three novels, plus the two unpublished ones. The first one came out in 2006, and the second one last year.Then disaster struck again. In August of last year, Night Shade Books pulled the plug on the Imaro series, after publishing only two of the five books. The reason? Poor sales again. I felt like I was in a time warp, or worse. At least DAW published three of the Imaro novels. Night Shade only managed two. I wished Night Shade would have stuck it out. But I couldn’t demand that they continue to lose money on my books. That was the bottom line, which they expressed with what I believe to be genuine regret.I could have quit then, and I don’t think anyone would have blamed me for doing so. But I had received a lot of encouragement from the people who had bought the books, and I decided to try to find another way to get all the Imaro novels published – a way that would bypass certain bookstores and distributors, which seemed to be a barrier between the books and the audience that theoretically is out there. Little did I know that another stage was waiting.STAGE SIXA while before Night Shade gave me the bad news last year, Brother Uraeus – now a member of this group – approached me with the idea of publishing my Dossouye collection via print-on-demand. Already working for a publisher, he aspired to set up his own print-on-demand imprint. The Dossouye book would be a great start for that imprint, which came to be known as Sword & Soul Media. I take full credit for coming up with that name, by the way. And I thought print-on-demand would be a good way to get more of my work to the reader, since Night Shade was only going to do one Imaro novel a year, which meant that the fifth one wouldn’t have been out until 2010.So, this project was already underway when the bomb dropped. At that point, I asked Uraeus what he thought about the idea of publishing the three remaining Imaro novels through Sword & Soul. His response was – well, enthusiastic would be a mild word to describe it. I’m enthusiastic too, because the novels will be coming out faster – hopefully by the end of this year, with covers by Mshindo Kuumba, the magnificent artist who did the Dossouye cover. My goal is to make all my books – including another Dossouye novel, an Imaro short-story collection and the full Abengoni series – available for the people who want to read them, however many or few such people may be. Naturally, I’m hoping for many.I don’t know whether there’s another stage in my writing life coming down the pike, but I’m sure feeling good about this one.Now, you’re probably wondering why I put so much of my business in the street like this. I would have to say it’s a lengthy and roundabout way of presenting a message, which is: If you have stories you need to tell, tell them. Don’t quit unless you get to the point where you really don’t feel like telling them anymore. To paraphrase one of Satchel Paige’s old sayings: Keep looking ahead. You may be gaining on something.
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