When I turned thirty-years-old something in me changed. It wasn’t a mid-life crisis, but a simple form of self-exploration which resulted in me taking a barometer to my past goals and seeing where they measured up. I was married, check; had kids, check; owned a home, check. I even had a career that allowed me to support them. But those weren’t the goals I held up to the light. Instead, I focused on the aspirations that excited me as a kid. The short list was to become a rock star, an astronaut, a comic book artist, and a writer.

Now, I can get into all the ways the first three weren’t going to work out, but what’s important is goal number four. I was not a kid who enjoyed reading books, but my dad said he would buy me every comic book on the shelf as long as I read them. Needless to say, I owned a lot of comic books as a kid in the nineties. What eventually sparked my longing to write a book, though, was when I had saved some lunch money that I wanted to burn on a new stack of comics, but there was nothing on the shelves I didn’t already own. It was then that I decided to browse the magazine and book racks and my eyes fell on something that caught my eye. It was a book featuring a comic book character! “What Savage Beast” by Peter David, is a novelization of the Incredible Hulk. I contemplated the purchase, knowing that books were not my thing, but my curiosity nudged me along and I bought it.

All said, I read it cover to cover three times in about as many weeks.

Something changed in my perspective, and it had a positive impact on the rest of my life. I was no longer the kid who hated books, I was the kid who wanted to write a book.

Fast forward fourteen years and I finally took the first steps towards making that happen. Exodus was written for National Novel Writing Month 2012. It was my first book and it began my career as a published author. I was bitten by the writing bug, and have since published more than twenty books. I guess I should thank the Hulk, huh?

A few facts about my first book, Exodus:

Drew Avera is a Navy veteran, musician, and the bestselling author of The Dead Planet Series and The Alorian Wars. He lives in Virginia with his family. You can learn more about Drew by visiting his website at www.drewavera.com.