“A Lifetime of Stories, and the First One Finally Told”
(Introducing Book 1 of The Quest of the Naked Archive: Ashseam)
For more than forty years, maybe closer to fifty, I’ve been starting stories.
Some began as a single sentence. Some grew into chapters Some were nothing more than a spark scribbled on a scrap of paper. And all of them, every last one, ended up in the same place: a hard plastic file‑folder container I jokingly called the repository.
It became a kind of personal archive… a vault of beginnings, fragments, ideas, and half‑built worlds. I always told myself I’d get back to them “someday,” when life slowed down, when work eased up, when I finally had the time.
Retirement finally gave me that time.
For the first time in my life, I could sit with my stories instead of rushing past them. I opened the repository, sifted through decades of ideas, and realized something simple but powerful:
It was time to finish a book.
That book became Ashseam, the opening volume of The Quest of the Naked Archive Trilogy.
It’s the first story I’ve carried all the way from spark to completion. It’s not perfect but then it wasn’t meant to be. I made mistakes. I learned more than I expected. I rewrote, rethought, and rebuilt pieces of it as I discovered what kind of storyteller I really am.
But it’s finished, and that matters more than perfection ever could.
What excites me most is that Ashseam is only the beginning. Now that I’ve learned the craft, the discipline, and the rhythm of authoring a full novel, the second part of the trilogy is already shaping up to be stronger, sharper, and more confident.
Book 1 is the doorway.
Book 2 is where I walk through it with purpose.
Book 3 is the horizon waiting beyond the Shatterwilds.
If you’re joining me at the start of this journey, thank you.
If you’ve been waiting for me to finally author the stories I’ve been carrying for half a lifetime, I’m glad you’re here.
This is the beginning, finally, of the worlds I’ve been building in that plastic container for decades.
And I can’t wait to show you where the thread leads next.
