Backstory for Shogun Dreams

My first published story, “The Path of the Faerie King” landed in a collection called 100 Stories for Haiti, and I really got into the idea—writing for a cause. In fact, I’ve had six stories published that way at this point.

This story was written for, and first appeared, in New Sun Rising: Stories for Japan, a collection raising relief funds for the March 2011 earthquake in Japan. The call for stories came with a stipulation: the stories had to celebrate Japan and its culture.

I live in Arizona and have never been to Japan. Have limited parts of the culture I understand (the Shogun miniseries was my biggest introduction to the culture as a teenager). And I wanted to have a sci-fi element to the story.

That is the beauty of constraints, they channel your energy and actually empower your creativity.

I am also aware of how a fatal diagnosis can change someone. My wife runs a non-profit that helps people navigate this tricky territory, which all started with helping our best friend live with (and eventually die from) a brain tumor. After pondering the constraints of the story, the opening line “Jeffery Smith was a wholly unremarkable man…” popped into my head and we were off and running (with quite a bit of research on Japan, of course).

I missed the mark on this one in my first draft—I stopped as soon as Jeffrey got to Japan and didn’t follow it through. My wonderful beta readers helped me see the issue, and I was very pleased when this story was picked for the collection.