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James Gannon is currently writing
CS2
IS- The Devil's Hand
IS- The Callousmobile Trilogy: Part I

James Gannon is currently reading
The Oz Chronicles: Volume 1 by L. Frank Baum

I was born on August 15th, 1981 in Providence, Rhode Island, and lived there for a few years before relocating to a wooded region in West Greenwich. You would too if the old man living next door threatened to shoot your entire family. This is also where I was run over by a sadist with his bicycle, and where I pounced on a kid as he was making off with my Smurf bike.

My first experience with the joy of writing was in third grade. We had a "writing workshop" class, which allowed us to write and illustrate our own stories. My first effort was called The Devil's Hand, a story about me falling into The Devil's lair and how I escaped. This started as a solo project, but then a friend of mine at the time wrote a sequel. This caused us to collaborate on turning it into a small series. Following the end of those stories, I wrote The Killers, which was about the misdeeds of criminals and how me and my buddy would stop them. This prompted us to do another series. I also wrote two solo stories called The Lonely Quest, about a knight having to save a princess from a tower guarded by a three-headed dragon, and then something about a stingray having to save his jellyfish friend from a shark.

The combination of this writing and drawing course instilled in me the desire to do this for a living. I wanted to be a cartoonist, and produce a comic to be featured in newspapers. It was to feature a cast of anthromorphic creatures, and I would draw pictures of them all the time. It wasn't until my seventh grade English class that I would have another major writing project, this with no illustrations allowed. It was a trilogy of stories featuring a character named Toonboy, a kid who discovers he's really a cartoon character after being hit by a truck.  This was my best and most enjoyable work ever, and I received high marks for my work.  Whether I was writing or drawing, the desire to let my imagination guide my hand was growing stronger.

I would like to mention that in sixth grade, I placed seventh in a school-wide spelling bee. And if I didn't spell "label" with an "e" at the end, I probably would have placed higher.

I remember in my earlier years always wanting to make people laugh, and would often do and say strange things in an attempt to entertain people. This often caused quite the opposite effect.  When seventh grade rolled around, I lost a whole lot of friends because I still acted a bit juvenile. I'll save the recollections of my teen angst for my auto-biography, but it was during high school that I began to take an interest in "the dark side". You see, I grew up in a religious family. Not bible-thumping religious, more like "go to church every Sunday to secure a spot in Heaven" religious. I made Communion, received Confirmation, and all that other stuff which grants me the honor of getting married in church. However, my faith in religion faded as I grew older, probably due to science, and I required a lot more than "blind faith" to continue to believe in the existence of a higher power. Plus, I don't appreciate anyone demanding me to either "love and fear" them, or suffer consequences. Anyway, all the hate forced upon me by my schoolmates built up a negative energy within me, and my entire disposition changed. I didn't lash out aggressively, but rather became quieter and more reserved.

If I could brag for just one more moment, I want to let it be known that I won grand prize in an America Online Godzilla trivia contest in 1998.

Twelfth grade English class was a very important turning point in my life. It was probably our lesson on the art of parody that convinced me to drop my cartoonist ambition and become a pure writer. I guess it wasn't that much of a switch: just lose the drawings and increase the words. Our class had to write our own parodies based on whatever story we chose. I decided to parody a story we read earlier that year called Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. My adaptation was called Sir Gawain and The Turquoise Knight, and since I was a fan of Monty Python and The Holy Grail, I used that as a guide. I read it aloud in class, received a few laughs, and was actually one of the few students who was given applause upon finishing. After so many years of my "stand up comedy routine" failing to garner support, I finally discovered a way to entertain both myself and others at the same time. My love of writing came full scale, and I even went back to my parody and extended it.

After high school graduation, I took a year off from pursuing education. I needed a break. Throughout my entire school career, I was mostly an average student. I was most definitely not looking forward to college, which would kick the learning curve up quite a bit. But at the request of my parents, I attended the Community College of Rhode Island for a degree in Liberal Arts. I was absolutely miserable. But I do remember using the time in-between periods to write notes about potentials characters and stories in a notebook. However, the frustration of being force-fed a bunch of information I didn't feel was relevant to my chosen career path made me make the decision of dropping out. My parents were paying for my education, and I felt like I would be wasting it if I failed my courses. I knew I could write efficiently already, and there was no room for writing since I was already balancing college and a job.

It was near the beginning of the new millennium that I created a character named Callous. He was a teenager with a strong dark spirit who had a severe hatred for injustice. I day-dreamed many scenarios for him to take part in, which birthed more characters to participate. Many of them were based on people I knew in real life, others were fleshed out versions of stereo-types. The way these characters would interact with each other gave way to storylines, which I started to form into ideas for books.

Ever since those third grade writing workshops so long ago, I had a preference for producing series. I enjoyed my characters so much, I wanted to feature them as often as possible. In my mind, there are two kinds of stories: people stories and concept stories. For example, Great Expectations is a story about characters and what happens to them. Then there's War of the Worlds, which is a story about an alien invasion, and the characters revolve around that. The focal points of those two books are completely different.

During the years following Callous' inception, I started organizing all my ideas on computer until I had a strong guideline of what I wanted to write.  But I had yet to write a single story.  So I picked my top four characters, Callous, Shadow, Tammy, and one yet to be announced, and wrote each a short story.  This was to test how well I could work with my top stars.  It's one thing for me to jot down ideas on what they will do.  But to type the story itself is a whole different matter.  In my head, it's as if I'm watching the events unfold before my own eyes, and I'm just recording everything I see.  I knew at that time, while Callous was chasing vandals out of his mausoleum, that this was truly my calling in life.  Those four short stories gave me the confidence I needed to begin my first novel immediately following their completion.

I was so eager to dive into my first book, Callous: Soldier of Darkness. It took me about nine months to write, but I honestly believe I could have done it faster.  Even today, it goes through minor tweaks and alterations before finally being delivered into the hands of agents and publishers who will probably offer more changes.  I was slowed down a bit by my full time job, which was spiritually draining for me.  It was exciting to feature so many of my characters together for the first time, playing out the scenes I imagined in my head for so long.  The more I write, the more I notice improvement.  I've already begun the sequel to my first book, and it's already better than its predecessor.  And my characters still have countless adventures ahead of them.  I just hope you all will come along with me for the journey.