As for who Raymond Cook is, well, I’m a 65-year-old disabled veteran. In 1972, at the age of 18, I enlisted in the marine Corp. My plan was to retire. But fate has a way of changing our destiny. In 1974 on my way back to my base, a drunk driver hit me head-on going 80, and my life was forever changed. Those were my darkest days. Eventually in 1983 I enrolled in college and took a creative writing class as an elective. At that point I had no interest at all in becoming a writer or author. In truth, how many people have taken a writing course in high school or college and believed one day they would write a book?
Little did I realize what a ‘profound Impact’ that class and my instructor, Mr. Art Wicks would have on my future. Between 1983 and 2010 I wrote my poetry and short stories, but refused to believe that one day I could set down and pen thousands of words, put a title to what would one day be considered a book. In 2003, I wrote a 5-page western romance story I called ‘A Western Romance Story.’ It was only meant to be a short story. Each year though, I would add a few pages to the story because I liked the story plot and characters. In 2011, while wanting to add 10 more pages to what was now a 50-page story, ‘something happened’ and it became my first novel called “Was It Fate Or Destiny?”
On May 26, 2018, The Lodi news Sentinel featured an article about me, and my newest novel, An Orphan With A Destiny on the front page of the newspaper.
This is my 8th year writing western frontier novels.
I recently learned that Arthur William David Wicks, my college professor who taught Creative Writing to me in 1983 recently died on Nov. 10, 2013. It is a great loss to the world because he truly touched the lives of his students, me in particular. Without his guidance, encouragement and inspiration, none of my eBooks or poetry would have been written.
An author’s goal is to not just ‘Entertain a reader’ but to try to touch the reader’s emotions too. After all, that’s the entire purpose of reading a book, to enjoy what you’ve read.
I feel the world of self-publishing is rapidly changing, and I hope it will always be in a good way for us self-published/indie authors.
Since my first eBook in 2011, I’ve written 28 more western frontier eBooks totaling 7,000 pages. If someone had told me in 2011, I would write this many books, I wouldn’t have believed them. I hope An Orphan With A Destiny! will become your favorite.
Feel free to check out my primary author website featuring all 31 of my western frontier eBooks at: www.westernfrontierebooks.com
~~My advice to anyone who wants to write a book but thinks they can’t, stop saying, “I can’t” and take a ‘creative writing course’ like I did back in 1983.~~
