History of Sura, the writer. Chapter One. Cry of the Eagle.

"I'm going to write a book!"

Paul, my newest, lifelong friend, looks up and says, “Right?” His tone did not sound that confident. Or did he say, “Write?” More in a “why?” format. It could have been in a supportive “Well, then, go write.” I will have to go ask.

It was Fall of 1981 and approaching finals week at my first trimester (that’s how they did it then) at Michigan State University. I had been struggling with Calculus and Chemistry. I was Aceing swim class (pretty sure it was Advanced Swim too). But, I was working my butt off in an English, and I was inspired to write more.

There are so many stories wrapped embedded in the preceding paragraphs. We will get to those later.

I went on Winter Break. And, during that break. I wrote the first draft of what is known as Cry of the Eagle. One-hundred pages. Hand written.

“A sleek craft streamed through the cold, empty vacuum of space…” Quite the opening line. It was edited out later with draft three. We went with more action.

Yeah, “We.” I shared that first draft with Paul. He was impressed, enthralled, and had some input. And yes, he’s the co-author.

I, think officially, when have been through six drafts with pauses of a year to ten years in between. Draft four was the official completed draft back in ‘93. Some of the chapters are the original and some have been added and a few deleted.

I physically did most of the writing, but the story ideas and conversations over the thirty years really makes it difficult to separate who said what and when. It is simply, our science fiction novel. We proudly put it to press in 2014.

We like our book. It has sold 27 paperbacks and 17 ebooks.

No, we are not in the money. We are rich in our friendship, and we feel good that we can at least say we did it.

Is there a sequel? Yes. We have it in our head that it is a trilogy. We are working on part one of book two this summer. I am experimenting with more writing formats. Part one of the second book, Blood of the Eagle will be released as an e-book by 2019. We may do all the parts as ebooks, more as a serial, then put it in paperback.

So, the history of Sura, the writer, has a few more chapters.