The journey to writing and publishing novels was a long one for me. Prior to writing my first novel, a lengthy business career includes having worked many years for a major international bank. At different times, I was responsible for its banking operations in greater San Diego and for its Private Banking operations across the United States. Other experiences include ten years as a real estate broker in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, and, subsequently, as the director of an Indian gaming commission, also in California. 

In my business life, I always admired the written word, having seen how a simple change in syntax or word usage can compel action, win an argument, sell the unsellable. However, I did not put my first word to paper for Serpent at the Well, my inaugural novel about a fifty-year fight over an ancient lake, until I was in my mid forties. My original goal with that novel was to see if I might have the right stuff to actually write a complex, character and plot driven book of fiction. I must tell you that I probably bit off more than I should have for that first effort. In the end, I rewrote the entire six-hundred page novel a multitude of times (I stopped counting at five), before I felt it a competent effort.

The early thinking about my novel, Joshua Rye, came during the time in Carmel, when I volunteered at a hospice on the Monterey Peninsula. A hospice is the setting for the evolution of the story’s main character, a self-serving and unethical investment banker, whose sole desire is to become his firm’s youngest ever partner. 

My third novel, MOLTO GRANDE, was a challenge due to the immensity of the story itself. At 261,000 words (roughly three full-length novels), it is a weighty offering. It is period fiction, set in seventeenth century Europe, a time of enlightenment, but also plague, servitude, deadly edicts, and impending war. It follows the remarkably different lives of two Italian brothers who are separated when plague and wildfire destroy their family. Many years later, the arcs of their epic stories converge in surprising and dangerous ways.      

As a late entrant into the field of novel writing, it occurred to me that I am not the only one who has stories to tell for which life got in the way. This is why I now write the blog series, “Writing from Behind the Curve.” The series argues that it is never too late to begin writing that short story or novel that’s been bouncing around in that noggin of yours for the past 10, 20, or even 40 years. I hope that you will take time to peruse the first blog or two to get a more detailed idea of what this is all about.  

All the best,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Dick Franklin                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Visit Dick’s Amazon.com author’s page: amazon.com/author/dickfranklin