The Author

Author James M. Fields
I was born in Scottsburg, City of Scott County Indiana on January 26, 1956. I have lived in Scott County most of my life; except for a short period when my parents moved back to their hometown in Eastern Kentucky shortly after my birth, but that was short lived. We ended up moving back to Scottsburg, and this is where I have lived ever since. I attended the Scott County School systems; I started first grade through the sixth at Johnson Elementary, then seventh through ninth at Scottsburg Junior High, and then finished High School at Scottsburg Senior High in 1974.


 I have two younger sisters, two children, three stepchildren, six grandchildren, and my wife Rita of eleven years. My life is busy with work and grandchildren, but the grandchildren are worth it. My wife Rita and I both work for Multi Color Corp. at Scottsburg IN., we have both worked there for seventeen years now.


 I have often thought that it would be great to be able to write a book, but I thought it was something I could never do. How would it start, how could I come up with enough content to put into a book, and what would I write about; these were the questions that ran through my mind when the thought of writing entered it. I would look at a book, and think how could someone put all those words together in one story, keep the characters personalities’ straight, and the story moving smoothly without forgetting something important to the story. 


 Well I found out you need to keep a cheat sheet with all the characters names, and the page numbers of their first appearance in the book. Keep a list of the important events as you go along, and page numbers of them to refer back to as you write. Any new story ideas you need to write down here as well, because if you do not the good ideas may be lost because you will not remember what you had thought of just a few minutes earlier.


 My book got its first sparks of life when my friend Darrell Morgan started to smack talk me in emails on February 14th 2007, and little did I know that 15 months later on May 23, 2008, I would have a finished book. This story came easy most of the time after I got it started, it more or less wrote itself. However, there were times when I would sit down at the computer, and I would have no idea as to what to write. In those times I would type one sentence, and then it would start to flow from there.


 Darrell and I play online games across Microsoft’s Xbox Live, and that is why he was smack talking me to begin with. Some of the characters in the story are named after the Gamer Tags of people that I know, and play against online, and some characters are family members. All my grandchildren have characters in the book. Therefore, I want to thank all my family, and gamer friends, for the use of their names, and or Gamer Tags.


 I wish my mom and dad were still around to see my book being published. Dad loved to read, and he would have gotten enjoyment out of reading this book. However, mom did get to read some of it before she passed. She passed away shortly after I finished writing it; she so wanted to see it published, but she left us before that could be accomplished. I want to thank my wife Rita, and sisters Deborah Lynn Kersey, and Mary Elizabeth Reddick for encouraging me to continue to write. After they had the chance to look over the first few chapters, they were hooked; they kept asking questions that I could not answer without giving the story away. My older sister Deborah had her own theory´s of what was going to happen in the book, but mostly she was wrong. 


Iwant to give a special thanks to my good friend Darrell Morgan for the smack talk that started this whole journey. A special thanks to Chris Chasteen (Artist) for making the cover of my book a reality. I spent many hours in trial and error trying to color Chris’s sketch, but it paid off. I don’t know what I would have done for a book cover without Chris’s help; thanks Chris.