Print This Post |  Email This Post

Shannon’s life: The Readers’ Digest Condensed Version.  It’s his story, and he’s sticking to it.

Shannon Thomas was born and raised in a rural area of Nicholas County, West Virginia. He spent his childhood in the deep woods and cool streams surrounding his home. He fought with his three younger brothers more often than he got along with them, and he lived miles from the nearest school buddy, so he spent many hours alone with only his dog for companionship. These hours were spent in far away worlds doing amazing deeds. His imagination knew no boundaries. He began writing his adventures in the seventh grade, and he became a steady winner in the county-wide Young Writer’s contest until he stopped competing in 1992.

Public school bored him, and he did not enjoy the social opportunities school presented. The archetypical outsider, Shannon kept a small core of close friends and generally disdained the rest of his peers. He graduated from Richwood high school in the spring of 1993 and attended West Virginia Wesleyan College in the fall.

At Wesleyan, Shannon tried unsuccessfully to become a more sociable creature and fall into step with the rest of the human race. He planned to get a degree in an area that would pay his bills while giving him time to develop a writing career. Originally a double major in computer science and engineering-physics, he changed his major to English after the first year and then dropped out entirely at the conclusion of his fall semester in 1995.

Shannon joined the US Army on January 1, 1996 where he made his way through basic training, airborne school, and the Ranger Indoctrination Program in order to become a member of the 1/75th Ranger Battalion at Hunter Army Airfield, Savannah, Georgia.

Over the next four years he served with one of the most elite infantry combat units in the world. He traveled to Germany, Panama, Thailand, Korea, and many states within the USA. He jumped out of airplanes, flew along the nap of the earth in helicopters, shot rocket launchers, detonated mines, and learned to use virtually every small arms currently employed around the globe. He married in November, 1996 and nearly died from hypothermia in late 1997 while in Pre-Ranger School. It was in the Army that Shannon picked up the nickname “Tommy,” a name he prefers to this day. He wrote very little and published nothing during his Army career, because his mind was often occupied with more important matters (like staying alive,) but he did write a few poems that became very popular among his fellow soldiers, and his words started showing up on plaques awarded to soldiers in Charlie Company.

Shannon left the Army in April, 2000 and moved to join his wife who already had a job and an apartment in Marietta, Ohio. After a number of failed attempts to join law enforcement agencies, he signed into the Computer Information Technology program at West Virginia University at Parkersburg. He spent his days immersed in Windows, Cisco, Java, Visual Basic, and all things computer-related. He spent his free time writing short stories, revisions and source material for pen-and-paper role playing games, and he finally started the novel he’d always wanted to write.

His wife asked for a divorce in February, 2002, and the hearing finalized the matter in July of the same year. Shannon lived at first with a friend from the college until he could get on his feet and get an apartment of his own. The novel was forgotten as he devoted all of his time to school and work. He attended college as a full time student, worked up to thirty-five hours a week as the senior computer technician for the CIT program, and taught lower-division Cisco classes twelve hours a week. He also trained with a local National Guard unit and attempted to keep a steady girlfriend.

The pace only increased after he graduated in 2004. He got a full-time job as a salesman with a local telephone and security camera company. At the same time, he continued to teach at WVU-P and taught a few classes online for ECPI, a college based in Virginia Beach, Virginia. In January, 2005, Shannon quit his salesman job and moved to teaching online full-time. He taught two more classes in the spring for WVU-P and then packed his belongings and moved to Christiansburg, Virginia.

Initially a stellar success in the realm of online teaching, Shannon looked forward to doing great things with his teaching career, but it was not to be. The work schedule combined with reoccurring technical issues and personality conflicts soon burnt him completely out. He tried to switch to course development, but he finally left the company after a few failed attempts to revitalize his interest in the work. He was hired by General Dynamics to do computer and networking jobs around the world, once his security clearance was established.

At the same time, Shannon discovered the realm of Internet blogging. He quickly rose to prominence in his blogging community, where he was ranked in the top four of nearly 300,000 bloggers. It was the first time he’d written in ages, and it reminded him how much he loved it and missed it. He looked at his future in IT, full of ever-changing technology and the never-ending race to keep up with the learning curve, and he decided to leave it behind.

In October, 2005, he sold some things, gave some things away, and put the rest into storage. He packed his car and hit the road. His path led him through the south-east, and he eventually wound up in Tennessee, where he met a person he knew from the blogs, a person who promised to help him get published. The individual proved to be a liar and a fraud, and Shannon spent the remainder of the winter with his parents in South Carolina. He spent many hours working on his novel while watching the reflection of the sun glide across Greenwood Lake.

Shannon returned to Parkersburg, West Virginia, in February, 2006. Determined to avoid full-time computer work, he took on a number of jobs at the same time. He worked for Value City as a furniture assembler/mover. He reactivated his status with the National Guard. He worked as a fiction editor and writing coach. He worked as a bouncer at the Nip ‘N’ Cue. He taught two Cisco classes for WVU-P. He also built a number of personal websites and launched an online forum for writers.

He finished the rough draft of his first novel in September, 2006. In the following months he sent it to test readers and refined the draft while he submitted it to contests and literary agents.

By June, 2007, it was clear that some aspects of his life needed to change. The book was being ignored by everyone. His bank account was empty. He was working himself into an early grave, and had nothing to show for it. Shannon withdrew from all online endeavors. He stopped the fiction editing job. He stopped querrying agents. He quit bouncing at the bar. He decided to teach one class (instead of two) for the Fall 2007 term. He quit Value City.

In July, Shannon took the position of network administrator at a local hospital. He was very reluctant to return to IT work, but he was tired of being broke. He was tired of working seven days a week for a fraction of what he could make in forty hours of IT work.

He joined the hospital’s chemical response team and tried to visit the gym enough to keep his weight under control.  He failed in that endeavor, thanks in part to the many colds and infections he caught while working around patients in the ER.  At one point he returned to the Nip N Cue, but he had to quit again because he caught the flu, coughed so hard that he tore something lose in his ribs, and then developed pneumonia on top of the flu when the pain in his side prevented him from breathing deeply enough to clear his lungs.

Despite the illnesses, Shannon’s quality of life improved overall during his time at the hospital. The bills were paid every month, with some left over. He furnished his apartment with furniture and decorations according to his own tastes, and he repurchased all of  the firearms he’d been forced to sell in 2005.  The hospital salary allowed him to stop all other jobs, and he left the National Guard as soon as his contract expired.

He used his new-found free time to separate Heretic into two books.  The first book is now titled Warlock’s Wake.  The second retains the original title, Heretic.  He improved his websites, researched literary agents, and laid the groundwork for self-publication.

Shannon left the hospital in January, 2009.  He accepted an offer at the US Treasury, where he still worked in IT, but he enjoyed the job more because it focused on the types of devices he preferred.  The new position paid better, offered more flexible  hours, and more time off.  He hoped to publish  the novel in 2009, but it proved to be a chaotic year.  The new job required much more energy than he’d anticipated, and numerous upheavals in his personal life kept him busy.  Just to complicate life further, he bought his first house.  The year passed so quickly that he didn’t realize it was over until a cashier scolded him for dating a check “2009″ instead of “2010.”

In the coming months, Shannon hopes to pay off his car, buy a few toys, and get his novel represented or self-published.  It should prove to be an interesting year.

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
 Loading ... | 29 views | 2 comments

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
•