Tom Young

In high school writing came easy to me, it was the only way I could express myself naturally. My high school English teacher, Ms. Williams, encouraged me to write, and I always passed the course requirements without any difficulty. I usually wrote poems or what I believed to be songs that I hoped could be set to music sometime in the future. I had a pile of things that I had written, but unfortunately, as time passed and life got busy, I lost all of my compositions.

An example of how important and healing writing can be for me is when I wrote a poem to my four-year-old daughter Laura after my first wife and I separated. I was in an all-night coffee shop and was feeling very depressed. As I wrote the poem to Laura I was crying. I have thought about this sad night many times throughout the years and I have always had the same sad memory; in an all-night café, crying, and writing a poem to Laura. However, about twenty years later, against all odds, I rediscovered that poem. Again, it brought up the same emotions. Again, I cried the same way I had the night I had written it twenty years earlier. From that experience learned that when one is writing from the heart, one’s emotions, or spirit, can transcend time.

Why science fiction as a choice to write a story? I chose to write science fiction because I thought it would be and easy way to express myself and I have always liked the genre. I wanted my science fiction to be “more down to earth”, or plausible, than some that has been written by others. I perused the NASA.GOV, files for hours looking for interesting things on the many moons in the solar system. I found a few and incorporated those ideas in my books as food for thought.

All of my characters are made up and are totally of my own imagination. I think all writers imbue their characters with traits that they personally may be lacking and that they wish they had themselves. There is nothing in my book that is autobiographical. But, I would give anything to experience some of the adventures my characters have had, I guess I just have to live with that, for now!

I first started writing my first book more than twenty years ago. It was about what it would be like to come from a spirit world to a physical world and thus experience the change from a spiritual being to a corporal human being. What would one feel like, other than terrified? What I learned from that effort was that a writer should use a spiral notebook to keep their story aligned. I did not. I was almost finished writing my book when I dropped my many pages which scattered in the wind. I abandoned the effort temporarily.

I handwrote “Seed of Hope” in a spiral notebook in three months, (at work). It took me two years to put it in Microsoft Word. It has taken about one year to write “Assimilation”. Using Microsoft Word is an ongoing education in perseverance and a different writing skill than handwriting in a notebook.

While I attended Austin High School I joined the Navy Reserve. My agriculture teacher, Mr. Henley, was also the Commanding Officer of the Austin, Texas, Naval Reserve Training Center. After graduation, I went to Sonar School in Key West, Fla. My first duty aboard a ship was on the USS HARLAN R. DICKSON, DD708, in Newport, Rhode Island. I transferred to the USS CAMP, DER251. We left Rhode Island going thru the Panama Canal and our new home port became Pearl Harbor. We had one deployment to Vietnam and participated in Operation Market Time. We searched Chinese junks for weapons.

I am retired from American Airlines as a specialist in moving aircraft parts for the AA fleet at DFW Airport and also worldwide. My life has continued as all lives do, with many ups and downs, and many joys and heartaches. I never considered writing a book to publish until I was in my sixties.

I have nothing from my ancestors that tells me who they were. I did not know my real dad, as he died when I was three. His name was Charles Turpen. My mother’s name was June Cotton. I had a brother Richard, two sisters, Charlene and Francis. My Mom, struggling, single, with no skills to speak of, and of course, us, was kept off the streets by my Grandmother. Eventually, Mom decided I would be better off in foster care. However, Richard Young, a farmer, and his wife, Jean Lacy, lived across the street and with an agreement with my Mom, raised me as their son. This arrangement did not seem odd to me because I just moved across the street and I got to play on the farm on the weekends.

What I did gain from the arrangement was that every morning growing up, my “Pop” would come into my room and kiss me on the cheek and say, “I love you Tommy”. He died before I got out of the navy. He was the single most stabilizing force in my life.

I believe that a hug and a kiss from a loved one is like an echo from the past and a whisper forwarded to the future. Reaching the age of seventy-three and having children that can still honestly say, “I love you”, I believe is a testimony to the love I received from my Pop.

I write my stories for my children, Laura, Vickie, Thomas, and Jared, so that perhaps they may get a sense of who I am. Right now, I am blessed to have three great grandchildren. My books are for them and those that come after. I hope you enjoy them too.