Doug Sharp
Excerpt
"PUNCH IT!" I shout.
A burst of lead jackhammers into the cockpit roof. A slug rips a screeching groove in the thick windshield.
BOOMGROWL! The Energia's thrusters roar to life. Acceleration jams the seat hard into my spine.
“Whee doggies!” I whoop. Back into the wild black yonder.
Space shuttle Enterprise scrams on treadmarks of smoke up, up, up into the grey Kazakh sky.
--from Channel Zilch
Bio
I am an ornamental hermit living in a remote lakeshore cabin in deepest Wisconsin with two horrible dogs.
While I was a fifth grade teacher in the late 70s, I taught myself programming with Apple IIs. I wrote two hit games in the mid-1980s: ChipWits (named eighth-best game ever written for Apple or Macintosh by Maclife) and Cinemaware's King of Chicago. I incarnated as the Demo God for Microsoft Research's Virtual Worlds Group in the mid-1990s.
I’ve fought back from a disabling epilepsy/pain condition to attend Clarion West Writers Workshop (2002) and to finish my novels Channel Zilch and Hel’s Bet. I am just starting to write Castle Rising--a medieval-kids-vs.-alien-armada MG novel.
Publications
My short story "The Flying Squids of Zondor" appears in Panverse Publishing's anthology Eight Against Reality.
Writing Description
My short stories tend to squirt out onto the page and startle bystanders. My novel Channel Zilch is a fast-paced adventure with fun characters doing cool stuff, plenty of plot, twisted tech, and well-researched astronautics.
Goals
I am just starting to write Castle Rising so my goals are to:
- Write the first 7,500 words
- Outline the story
- Read more 12th-century history
- Develop the four main characters--autistic apprentice scribe from England, prince from the castle of Great Zimbabwe, martial artist from Angkor Wat, and hunter from Mesa Verde
Website
