EOC employee wins award for first book
With a sly smile, Lee Stephen admits writing is a way of creating his own adventure.
“When you have a good idea that no one else has, the only way is to do it yourself,” Stephen said. “The excitement of letting other people see the things that I come up with and enjoying it was a huge part of me – getting to share a part of yourself. In the end, you want others to like something you came up with. It’s very much a grind to write a novel, but you have to start with one word.”
Stephen whipped open his first sci-fi novel, “Dawn of Destiny,” and pointed to his first word – “It.” On the book’s cover is a silver sticker that says New Apple Award for Excellence in Independent Publishing.
The book is the first of an eight-book series, and the fifth one is expected out this year.
Storytelling came to Stephen at a young age.
“I would consider myself an old Trekkie,” he said of how the television show “Star Trek” and watching it with his father put him on the path of sci-fi writer. “The classic stuff is just the best.”
The “Alien” horror movie series, featuring an extraterrestrial lifeform and the art work of Swiss painter and sculptor H.R. Giger, also influenced Stephen’s work.“It was the unknown, the mystery of what could be out there that was fascinating to me,” he said, a 1/8th Houma Indian based in Golden Meadow. “Sci-fi let’s you go outside the lines.”
Today, he is known as Lee Stephen, but his legal name is Lee Stephen Hebert and he attended St. Charles Parish schools. He shortened his pen name to reach a wider audience, fearful readers would have a difficult time with his Cajun name pronounced “Ay-bear.” But, when he was in third grade at R.J. Vial Elementary School, life was much simpler when his little books were handwritten and bound by yarn.
By college, Stephen, then 21, came to believe he would give book writing a shot. The rejection notices poured in, but he soon decided to take advantage of the new emerging way to publish a book – go independent.
“I decided that I’d rather have a loser book than lose creative control of my books,” said Stephen, who oddly found consolation in rejection because it meant the book was unchanged.
He decided it didn’t matter to him what people thought about him being a self-published author because that was the trend for writers anyway and he is selling his books. “Anyone can put a book out on Amazon now, which is a good thing and a bad thing.”
Not all books published there are good or bad, but the reader decides the market now.How good the book will be is up to the writer and that takes work.
When Stephen started writing his first book, “Dawn of Destiny,” at age 19, he rewrote it at least a dozen times until the style matched what was in his head.
“The real test is you have the passion, patience and endurance to rewrite it,” he said. “Are you willing to put forth the effort to make it what it ought to be?”
As he honed his ability to add more elements and characters to the story, his books became longer and more complex. Stephen began to see plot twists that would be good in the third or fourth books while he was working on the first or second one.
“I write better than I did 10 years ago,” he said. “The art is making it work in a cinematic way. Its’ plot, more characters, being able to handle more things as a growing writer that makes books progressively longer.”
Asked which character he related to most in his book series, he replied: Boris F. Eytee, a Russian tech who is little noticed and just does his job. Stephen said he appreciated Eytee’s underdog character.
Stephen also decided while he might have to use profanity, sex or violence in his books, it would not be gratuitously. He wanted children to be able to read his books, and he wanted to present the forces of good and evil in “a classy way.”
He recently completed the audio book for his first book in the series, nearly a five-year project that won New Apple awards for independent writers. He won Audio Book of the Year and Best New Fiction.
“I didn’t expect that because it has more than 30 actors – it’s a movie basically,” Stephen said of the audio book. “Best New Fiction kind of blew me away. That’s just a blessing. The only other award I’ve gotten is best actor in third grade.”
Not bad for a now 33-year-old writer who has worked full-time at St. Charles Parish’s Emergency Operations Center since 2005. He was hired in June and then Hurricane Katrina hit, which required he work 21-hour days and sleep on the floor. Having lived the disaster, he wasn’t inclined to write about the devastation.
Stephen said he has stayed true to his passion – science fiction writing., but he doesn’t make enough money yet to quit his day job.
Book 5, not yet titled, will include a Cajun character.
“It’s going to be fun writing a real Cajun character and not the Hollywood portrayal of us as idiots or over emphasized characters. It’s fun to write someone who is a believable Cajun character. He’s a soldier. I want to capture him well, as subtle as the Cajun is in him. I want to capture the realistic middle with him.”
Although reluctant to do an e-book initially, Stephen said it was the best move. Some 95 percent of his sales now are for Kindle readers.
“It’s unbelievable how much more an electronic version buys than the print,” he said, although he lightly tapped his stack of books as he said, “But this is special.”
Stephen acknowledged the convenience, but he considers it’s a little sad that the printed book is in less demand. He knows of some writers who have only digital books now, but he maintained if anything ever happened to the technology that his printed books would still be here.
When he reaches his eighth book in his epic book series, he will have written more than a million words.
The milestone will be marked by Stephen’s cosmic leap into his next project, which will have nothing to do with sci-fi writing. He plans on doing a book about a female tennis player trying to step up her career.
“I think if you have a gift, a talent, you need to do something with it,” Stephen said. “This, I was always good at, but there are so many gifted people stuck in the 9-to-5 rut and never wrote the novel. Make the time to do what you love to do.”
Be the first to comment