Skipping class leads Independence author to writing

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. -- Some teenagers skip class to smoke a cigarette. Others play hooky as an act of rebellion.

But science fiction author Jim Butcher of Independence used to skip out at Truman High School to go somewhere else.

"I was one of those cool-enough kids to skip class once in a while to go to the library," he said laughing, sitting in the coffee shop of a Barnes & Noble recently. "And also it was the only air-conditioned building in there."

His rebellious streak would land him a fateful brush with author Margaret Weiss, who wrote the best-selling "Dragonlance" series, and would sow the seeds for a successful writing career.

First novel was 'awful'

Weiss was visiting the school to talk with students about writing when Butcher sat in on her lecture at the library as he was skipping class.

"I just thought it was really, really interesting," he said. "So I kind of started considering doing that for a living. And the following summer when I was 19, I wrote my first novel. And it was awful."

Not to be dissuaded, he tried again. With the same awful results, he said.

"They continued to be terrible for the first six or seven that I wrote," he said.

By this point, he was in the professional writing program at the University of Oklahoma, taking classes from Debbie Chester, a published science fiction/fantasy writer, who had been trying to teach him for several years "with limited success."

"At some point, I just said, 'Fine' -- because I disagreed with her on several things about writing in my infinite wisdom -- 'and I'm just going to go ahead and do whatever it is you want just prove to you that it's a terrible idea, and I'm going to hand you an awful book.'"

The result? His first Harry Dresden book, "Storm Front." Or, in other words, his first novel that actually sold.

"Thus humbled, I try not to think about how much I know about fiction these days," he said.

But it wasn't as easy as sitting down to the computer and writing 350 pages of fiction.

After completing his first Dresden novel, Butcher set out on the long, grueling task of getting published.

But eventually Butcher's persistence paid off and he landed a book series deal with Roc, a division of Penguin Publishing, chronicling the adventures of one Harry Dresden, Chicago's only wizard private investigator. Described as Dirty Harry Potter, Dresden skulks the mean streets of modern day Chicago, solving supernatural mysteries.

Five best-selling Dresden books later, Butcher is currently putting the finishing touches on his sixth installation, "Blood Rites."

When asked for advice he gives to aspiring writers, Butcher serves up a vivid anecdote.

"The best writing advice I ever got was from Rogers Alazni. He told me, 'Write a little bit every day, even if it's only a word.' And I said, 'Why?' He says, 'Because you're one word closer to being finished."'