Who
Who am I? Well, after fifty years of being here, I'm not sure, yet, what the answer is to this question is. I believe that Life is having a bit of fun with me still and will reveal this, as some odd surprise, at the moment of my final commute. The scene will be something like this:
FADE IN:
LIFE, 20's, auburn hair, slinky, white gown and DEATH, very old, traditional, black-hooded robe, stand over CALDERWOOD'S bed. Calderwood is dying.
LIFE
Hey, Calderwood?
Calderwood opens his eyes, pushes himself forward. It's obvious, by the look on his face, that he wasn't expecting visitors.
LIFE
Hey, you were really supposed to be a wealthy man surrounded by beautiful women, movie stars, presidents and kings .... not a writer. SURPRISE!
Life and Death laugh hysterically.
LIFE (to Death)
Good joke, huh?
Calderwood lays back, closes his eyes and smiles - yeah, good joke.
FADE OUT
What
I work, primarily, in the field of screenwriting. No, not because I'm stupid, but because I have great hope, inexhaustible optimism, a credible business plan ... and The Knowing (look for The Knowing on this site). I also understand that: writing a screenplay, selling a screenplay, getting a screenplay produced and into the theater, and being successful at all of this is no more daunting than doing the same with a novel. Go to any bookstore and you will see what I'm talking about. The shelves are filled with work that never sells, authors that will never have an audience, writers that will never succeed. It is my belief that if you do anything better than anyone else you will succeed - I am planning for and preparing for success.
On this site you will find other work. Although my primary goal is to translate my efforts to screen, I feel that it is important to develop work in other fields as a well rounded writer should. When I began writing I was sure that I didn't want to write poetry but have made an about face on this issue and though I haven't written much I have written several pieces that I am proud of. I spend a great deal of time writing in various styles just to sharpen the skill, and in poetry I have dabbled several definable arenas.
The short stories on the site are exercises in prose and the articles, most of which have been written gratis, have been written because I believe that writers can build a credible resume with this tact. Writing free articles that publication need and desire is also a way to give back to your community. I've written on inline skating for adults and children, hydration and writing, all without pay and each and every time I have had people comment that what I wrote helped them in some manner.
When
I wrote two radio drama's in 1977. That's when I discovered that I was a writer. Then I took a 24 year hiatus to have children and marriages. I don't resent or regret one minute of this time away from writing. I am a better man because of the young men and women that I have been blessed to help into their lives. I don't regret my marriages in any other sense than not having been a better husband. Now, I am married to a woman who I have grown to be a better man in the shadow of, and she supports this endeavor wholeheartedly. So, for the past three years (since 2001) I write full-time.
Where
I reside in both Albuquerque, New Mexico and Santa Barbara, California. I write somewhere between any local coffee shop and an astrally projected location that is determined primarily by what I am writing at the time.
Why
When my brother and I were very small our mother would come into our room each night, at bedtime, and say our prayers with us. Afterwards, she would read us a story. I can still feel the pull of those moments whenever I write. This is the space between fantasy and the place of dreams and because of this I am filled with the relentless knowledge that there are other worlds where I can go. Worlds that beg for description by those who travel to these places and then return and tell us what they saw there. Travel writers of a sort.
When we were a bit older, and there were more of us, our father would recite verse from Service or read us bits of Kipling or Twain or Burrows. This is when I got to know those travel writers. I idolized them then and do so even more today for the worlds they carved from bare nothing.
I write, in part, because my parents made the time to read us into foreign lands, introduce us to Kings and Queens, dragons and boys who could talk to wolves, men who died with handfuls of gold and empty hearts. I also write because I have to. It's the only individual thing that I can do that has a sense, a feeling of wholeness about it. Secondly, I have learned through hard trial that there is little of real value in life other than the things one love's greatly. To me these are my family, a few friends, this life and writing.
This is all very new, and I suppose and hope it will seem new for many years to come. I continue to learn, and though I would not be able to tell you the difference between a dangling participle and a preposition without looking them up, and I continue to struggle with the rules of grammar, I know a good story when I hear one, read one, write one and the rest is simply technical.