"Where did you get the idea for Spheric?"

Spheric was a long ways in coming.  Before I had any inclination of writing a book, I was actually interested in creating a board game.

I love chess.  I love it in all its designs.  I’m also one for multiplayer games.  I like finding ways to adapt games to allow multiple friends to get together and join the fun.  All those customizable card games you’re supposed to play one-on-one in high school, well, we made up rules for 4-6 player free for alls that were incredible fun.

Then I came across the idea for four player chess.  Boards were in print out there, different ways to play.  The first edition was called Chess4, and, as I found out much later, was one of the simpler forms of multiplayer chess.  I fell in love, and my friends and I played entirely too many matches.

When I moved from California to New Jersey, I wanted to bring the idea with me.  However, by that time, I did not have a 4 player board, and for some reason, couldn’t find one at all the local shops either.  So, grabbing cardboard, I hand created the four player chessboard myself, and introduced it to my study hall.  Again, enjoyable games were played.

Then, I realized, why stop at chess?  I could create my own boards and games.  Combining that with the enjoyment of customizable card games that we had, I developed a game, complete with a set of around 150 unique cards.  The cards were assigned into 40 or 50 card decks, and you used them along with a die to move around the board I had created.  The goal was to find all the "Seal" cards, pictured as round amulets, and return to your home.  You used the cards to do battle with one another, and each player had one "Seal" card, that if you drew it, you had to immediately play.  If you defeated a player while his Seal card was out, you obtained the Seal.  Players "respawned" on their next turn, essentially starting over with no cards played, until someone gathered every player’s Seal and returned to the start position.

Each Seal would supplement that players deck with extra powers.  Enhanced Healing abilities, extra attack power or movement speed, etc.  When you had the Seals in your possession, you got all of their powers, so you got stronger as you collected them.  Sometimes you would find yourself cornered by three weaker players with their one Seal to your three.  It was a good game… one I never got around to publishing.  I think I still have a PhotoShop file with the layout of the cards somewhere.

When writing a story came around, I decided to pull from that idea.  Renaming the Seals as "Spherics," representing my rise from a 2D cardboard game to a 3D fictional realm, I started with the premise of four spheres, each with unique powers.  So far, in the story that’s been released so far, only one has been encountered, and due to the corresponding events in the story, its power is pretty obvious.  I then took characters, based on some friends of mine as the models for their personalities, and went from there.

The final aspect of Spheric was my desire to not just be a "Science Fiction" author, or a "Fantasy" author.  I wanted to combine the two worlds in some type of unique blend.  So, I did just that, literally.  I created a fantasy world, complete with medieval style settings, and then took a science fiction world, spaceships and all, and had one crash land into the other.  I created a backstory to link the worlds a long time ago, and went from there.

It doesn’t really sound that good, wording it that way, but that’s how it started, and its been a great ride ever since.