chapter book: Chicken Boy and the Wrath of Dr. Dimwad, and formed his own publishing company, Thompson Original Productions LLC. The inspiration for the company name and the drive to write came from one particular teacher: “Every time I brought my 4th grade teacher, Mr. Charles Aracich at T. Clay Wood Elementary School in Nokesville, a new story or picture...he would say, ‘Oh, a new Thompson original.’” Thompson shared, “He inspired me and said to never stop writing Chicken Boy.” The journey from writing and illustrating to publishing wasn’t easy but Thompson had support along the way. “My parents were a big help. Legally I was too young to operate a business on my own, so my mom became my manager and my dad, my editor,” Thompson said. “Getting published was a nice personal validation for me. Writing was something I was doing naturally and would have done really no matter what. It was very fulfilling to have my work on the bookshelf in the stores.” Initially, Thompson’s work appeared on Border’s shelves and then, about a year later, at Barnes & Noble. Thompson’s most personally treasured work to date is World of the Orb, released in October 2016. The author began conceptualizing this book as far back as fourth grade and through middle school, but truly began writing the story while in high school. Although his attention was split between writing, illustrating, school, and a social life, Thompson nourished his writing skills as he matured. One of the underlying messages of World of the Orb is conquering selfdoubt, which spoke to him personally as he was writing it. “I knew World of the Orb was something special from the beginning, so I felt an enormous sense of responsibility to tell the story right,” said Thompson. “My main character is so humble that he’s unwittingly sabotaging moments when he could be brave. His journey into this new world unlocks powers he didn’t know he had, which is reflective of one of the story’s primary themes: the humble will be exalted.” This literary work is a portal fantasy and Thompson’s creative ideas for the
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book came to him while he doodled in class. “I drew many creatures and knew I wouldn’t be able to write a story about each one, but I knew they all needed a place to live. So I created an environment; I drew many maps on the back of worksheets until I arrived at the one I used in the book,” shared Thompson. He even developed continents and biomes to include in this fictional world. Thompson described portal fantasy as “the reverse of urban fantasy, which was most popular to write at that point in time and noted by the likes of Percy Jackson and Harry Potter.” Details were not overlooked by Thompson. He even developed an entire language for the book called Trymbadorian, which also included its very own alphabet, and wrote in terrestrial words. “You can see a little bit of it [language] on the cover; it’s etched in the rim of the Orb’s silver stand,” he shared. “There is an inclination in fantasy writing to avoid terrestrial words, meaning when fantasy authors write, especially in the first person, they can’t have their characters comparing their experiences and what they’re seeing to earthly things. This is what makes
World of the Orb unique.” He explained the environment he created in this book is otherworldly, but because the main character is from Earth, he wrote everything clearly for the reader, in earthly terms. “It’s very exciting in that sense; I think it helps the imagery of the world fully come to life for the reader. I don’t want readers to do any work while they are reading. I want them [the reader] right behind the main character’s eye: to see, sense, feel what the character does.” In the spring of 2016, Thompson graduated from George Mason University, magna cum laude, and completed writing World of the Orb. “As soon as I graduated I was able to pour myself into the completing the book with same rigor and schedule I kept to in college,” noted Thompson. Yet while he was in college, Thompson’s fiction writing professor Laura Scott, a professor and author, mentored and had a positive influence on him: “She helped with ideas on how to balance work and school, and offered a great deal of advice.” Scott, who typically provided feedback to classmates in the form of
Thompson received a great amount of insipiration from his great grandfather, published author, Lawrence Schoonover. “To see that it (writing) could be done and was done by someone in my family before me is amazing. Schoonover’s work was translated into multiple languages, and was required reading in colleges. The Spider King (seen above) was even dedicated to my grandmother.”
GAINESVILLE LIFESTYLE
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