ABOUT ME — LARRY SHERRER
Learning to Write
I was 25 years old, fresh out of Vietnam and the Army. I felt compelled to share that war experience with the world. What I’d just survived was horrific, and unique; the first helicopter war, a jungle war, and in my case, as a helicopter pilot, a commuter war. The compulsion to share was born of a yet unrealized need for catharsis. A little PTSD they said.
I needed to write my first novel, but I didn’t know how to do that. I hadn’t written much beyond a few letters home and papers for college.
So, in my youthful hubris, I set my sights high. My two favorite authors at the time were Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut. I challenged myself to write an historical fiction novel that would be the Catch-22 of Vietnam, though as Vonnegut might have written it. Ha!
My first step was to buy four steno pads from the drugstore. I knew enough to begin in pencil.
Over the years, the story I wanted to tell evolved from that stack of steno pads, transcribed first with a typewriter, and eventually into bits and bytes on a computer.
While I labored to write, I worked as an elementary school teacher in Australia and California, as a helicopter instructor pilot in Oakland, California, and as a technical writer for several of the biggest high-tech companies on the west coast.
Eighty rejection letters from publishers and literary agents convinced me they were probably right in saying no one would pay to read more about that war. So, in 2007, and in reaction to an existential threat brought on by a prostate cancer diagnosis, I polished what I had, designed a cover, and published it myself.
Holding that first copy of Zigzag Men in my hand was all the reward I needed. I mailed copies of the book to all the surviving veterans I’d flown with. It was well received in that small community.
With that experience over, I found that I missed the creative process of writing. So, I began another novel, something quite different, the sort of thing I would like to read.
Twelve years later, I published a romantic odyssey entitled Lurk on the Love Planet. That second effort was even more satisfying, enough so that I did nothing to market them apart from putting them for sale on Amazon.
More recently, a personal experience with road rage gave me an idea for a third novel. I’m still working on that one.
And so it goes.
My major mistake was to do all of this writing alone inside my creative bubble, my manuscripts proofread by friends and family. It was comfortable, but limiting. Only recently have I discovered the joy of sharing the creative writing process with others. Life has a whole new dimension.
