The first time I wrote anything, I was eight, sitting down at my desk, the light pouring through the window of my bedroom on the Rockcliffe Base in Ottawa, back when it was a base in 1996.

Before then, I could barely read, and writing wasn’t a thing I ever imaged doing. But, when one of my favourite shows was cancelled, moved by it’s themes of dystopian elements, resistance to corruption, cooperation and heroism (we’re talking about Sonic the Hedgehog, SatAM), I said to myself “the story can’t end here…”

And, it didn’t. In very poor hand writing and even poorer sketch art, I basically wrote a 57 page fan-fiction fueled graphic novel outlining how I imagined the series to continue. I imaged I was an illuminator, and a scribe, like a monk adding to the Book of Kells.

In it, were all the elements that inspired me: space operas, military science fiction, oppressive dystopian elements, realistic characterization, and compelling plot devices. At eight years old, I was hooked. Twenty-nine years later, I’m still hooked.

After surviving cancer, just shy of my ninth birthday, my imagination went into overdrive. At the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), I imaged myself on long boat journeys, exploring strange places and meeting new people. In hindsight, it was a very interesting way to cope with existential dread at such a young age.

Eventually, I got better, and went into remission at age ten, and for three years, I continued writing fan fiction, just letting my imagination glean what it could. It wasn’t until I started reading books like Frank Herbert’s Dune, Alastair Reynolds’ Absolution Gap or George Orwell’s 1984 that I got a true taste of the genre I was diving headfirst into. And, combined with a surreal fascination with anime-styled mecha narratives, my content matured. The plot and the settings became epic, and the struggles of characters became dire.

Then, I remembered watching YTV one night, saw what looked like a compelling anime drama… but it was different. It wasn’t geared towards children, it didn’t hold punches on the impacts of the stakes… that was Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz. Again, my worldview changed forever, as I saw brave characters face off against the powerful, to fight for a better future, despite the grueling reality before them. When taunted to see how powerless they were, one simply answered “Roger that”… and that stuck with me. Resilient characters, and their internal struggles stayed with me, and resonated with who I am.

After my computer gave up the ghost when I was fourteen, I had a dream about a specific, ethereal scene that would makes its way into what would eventually become Dirge of Titans. I took it as a sign, shelved my fan fiction, and started writing original content.

The problem was, the first page of the first manuscript I ever wrote was written from a fourteen-year-old’s perspective, and by the time the book was finished, I was twenty. The characters, the narrative of the plot and the style itself had evolved in the production of the book. And, in the meantime, I worked as a technical writer in Ottawa, read more, and had a cancer relapse when I was seventeen. My whole worldview had changed, yet again, and it matured what I wrote into something unrecognizable from when I started.

In that time, I also drew several inspirations from JRPGs I had grown up with, like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VII, Xenogears, Terranigma, and Chrono Cross. I also started to be heavily influenced by Stoics like Marcus Aurelius and Gnostics like Valentinus. By the time I was thirty-five, Dirge of Titans was not only a cohesive story with an epic backdrop of thousands of years of history, but the style was finally solidified. I decided then, that I wanted to finish what I started, and publish it.

To this day, I’m working on successive stories and others, based on what originally inspired me, and by new encounters that shape my worldview. In fact, I was so fascinated by the mind, it’s inner workings, and how crisis and trauma are experienced in a person’s lifespan, that I decided to go back to school, and become a psychologist.

I hope Dirge of Titans, and all future books I pen remind you that the powerless are not made to stay that way; that courage and resilience are not just states of mind, but something you develop in yourself, and that no matter what challenges come your way, I hope you find others of like spirit and passions, knowing that “the future belongs to the brave.”

As the pilots in Cronus Squadron say,

Audeamus.