When I started writing as a kid it wasn’t for any other reason than because I had stories to tell. I didn’t see the stories as anything other than ways to be creative and to sorta share that creativity with the world. I dunno that anyone ever saw my stories outside of my mom and a teacher as a kid. It wasn’t until we started doing ‘zines that my stories got in front of other people.
As I wrote more though the more I dreamt about What If?
What If I pursued this, in whatever way that I could?
I didn’t have any thought that I’d be a Writer, but just that I wanted to write and to see where it lead. That’s what lead to me putting books out. Not the way I had dreamt but the way that worked. I came up with a DIY ethos of – if I can figure a way to do it then I will – and that was what I did. I got the stories out to people. When that was done I got the books out in front of people. I did conventions, art shows, book shows, whatever I could to get the book and me out in front of people to tell them about what I was doing. It took a while for a second book to come out, ten years, but it came out, and it was still in keeping with that DIY spirit that got me started with all my artistic ventures.
In putting this most recent book together I thought about the books I had put together, curious about how many it had been and where I was. I was honestly shocked to realize I had written and put out fifteen books with two other books done for private release.
That blows my mind.
Yeah, it wasn’t done traditionally, with a publisher backing me, but the books came out. And I will say this – anyone who goes through the process of putting a book out with the writing, editing, layout, art, release, and support, that isn’t something that you do unless you are passionate about it all. Yeah, it’s ‘easier’ to put books out via self publishing but that doesn’t make the process easy if you are genuinely putting some time and thought into it.
Fifteen books.
15!
I never would have thought that was possible.
At all.
More than that, if you told me, at age 18, that I would write books, do shows, do conventions, and meet hundreds of people because of the books I’d never believe it. I’d be even more shocked if you told me that in those books I’d write four children’s books, and a fantasy trilogy. That just wasn’t something I woulda seen happening at all. It wasn’t that I would have thought I was better than that sort of work but that just wasn’t what I wrote. I wrote horror. I wrote scary. that was it. The thing I have found though is that I got to a point where I just wanted to tell stories. That was what the point was when I started. The fact is that all of my books are weird and creepy, just aimed at different audiences and telling different stories.
That’s the thing though, I am in it to tell stories. Whatever those stories are. Wherever they take me. That’s why I do this.
I never would have imagined I’d put fifteen books out. Three novels, four kid’s books, three fantasy books, and the rest are colletions.
So.
Weird.
Once this new book is out that clears my plate of all the old stories from my past that I wanted to tell. That’s the last thing I had always wanted to write/finish.
I dunno what that means but it means that, for this moment, my stories are told. The big ones. The forgotten ones. The lost ones. That’s a heck of a thing.
…c…
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 