I started out writing stories for my kids when they were small. After dinner, we would sit in a circle on the living room rug and the kids would plead, "Read us a story, Daddy!" That got me hooked on story-telling.I guess I really got the story-telling "brain" from my dad, because the above description is exactly how things were at home when we were kids.
My mom was a song writer in the 1960s, not famous, though a famous person by the name of Al Martino recorded most of her songs.
I learned the "power of the pen" the hard way. When she was only twenty, my daughter Iris became suicidal after being diagnosed HIV-positive.
To give Iris courage to press on despite her "death sentence," I wrote a short story called "Legend of Toucan Moon" in 1993.
I started out writing stories for my kids when they were small. After dinner, we would sit in a circle on the living room rug and the kids would plead, "Read us a story, Daddy!" That got me hooked on story-telling.I guess I really got the story-telling "brain" from my dad, because the above description is exactly how things were at home when we were kids.
My mom was a song writer in the 1960s, not famous, though a famous person by the name of Al Martino recorded most of her songs.
I learned the "power of the pen" the hard way. When she was only twenty, my daughter Iris became suicidal after being diagnosed HIV-positive.
To give Iris courage to press on despite her "death sentence," I wrote a short story called "Legend of Toucan Moon" in 1993. It was an inspirational piece about a young Maya princess who develops a sickness in her head and is told that she must travel alone through the dangerous jungle in search of the cave of the Wise One to "discern the remaining number of her days." In the process, Toucan Moon not only saves the life of a handsome young prince, she manages to prevent a terrible war between their fathers.
Iris loved the story!
It seemed to give her renewed vitality to not only go on with her life but to do good for others with the remaining time she had here on this earth.
At her funeral on April 28, 1998, the Orange County, California, church was filled with people, many of whom stood up during the service and testified about the good deeds that Iris did for them.
After that, I became determined to expand the short story into a novel called "War Star Rising: The Legend of Toucan Moon," as a tribute to my "brave young princess." It would be my platform for speaking to other young people about the dangers of thinking they are "invincible." The young adult novel was published in September, 2008.
Everyone kept saying the story would make a wonderful movie, so I adapted the novel into a screenplay and entered it in a writing contest with Writer's Digest, and the screenplay won an award.
ZD"
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