I was raised in farm and ranch communities, and my dad wanted me to be a cowboy like him, but I saw how he struggled in life and wanted more than that.

Plot is very important to me, but I think my stories are stronger in character development.

Discipline means looking beyond the appearance, beyond that which is visible and acknowledging one Infinite Cause.

Don't get me wrong, God Bless the farmers and cowboys. It just wasn't the life I wanted. When writing stories of other lands, I can describe people and places from actual experience. And for someone with an imagination like me, I could see dinosaurs and lost civilizations in the jungle of Vietnam.

Learning is a process whereby a human being, or group, or organization, or society comes to understand and embody nature's patterns.

Probably the best way to describe my writing style is to refer you to purple prose, which was a tag given to the early mass market magazine writers earning a half cent a word for their fiction. They had to use every adjective, verb and adverb in the English language to add word count to stories in order to feed and support families.

The military offered the opportunity to see the world, and meet other people and learn new customs. Plus, the Army taught soldiers discipline. The life I experienced in the service was an education I could never have obtained as a cowboy.