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Jonathon Lively was born and raised in the Sacramento area of California. Coming from a split home, he was used to traveling back and forth between parents. Those long drives gave a young Jonathon time to think and imagine, and time to create stories. Some of those stories were fun, some were forgotten, and others got him into trouble. Of the few that he remembered, Jonathon would draw pictures to express his creativity. He was influenced heavily by Saturday morning cartoons and after-school television programs on the Cartoon Network.
As he got older, passing through grade school into middle school, Jonathon developed several interests in the form of comics, anime, manga, action figures, Legos, and anything else that spurred his creativity. On more than one occasion, Jonathon would focus as intensely as he could, and try to summon his own superpower. A superpower reminiscent of the characters he had grown to love. One of his passions became art. He expressed it through pencil sketches and digital mediums. Jonathon thought that art would be his passion and his future. That did not work out.
Jonathon ended up at four different high schools in four years. When his art began to suffer due to his lack of attention, he promised himself that whenever he would come up with an idea, he would make a rough sketch or write out a short text document to save it. Those sketches and text documents piled up. Jonathon went through some turbulent years. In one case, he was homeless for months while living in Indiana. During that time, he never deleted any of his documents, and carried his art around in a large portfolio. Jonathon stayed with a friend right before moving to North Dakota. All of his personal possessions were stored at that friend’s home. In the move, Jonathon’s art portfolio was forgotten. When Jonathon finally had enough money to get his portfolio sent to him, it was lost.
Jonathon was devastated. Years of saving and inspiration were gone. He took the time to write down as many of the ideas he could remember, and saved them with the rest of his text documents. As time went by, and Jonathon was less and less concerned with his art and writing. However, he managed to start putting his life together. He was correcting past mistakes, making amends, and learning to be a productive adult with future goals. A huge part of this change came from meeting his now wife, Brittany. She helped Jonathon mature and set small, attainable goals. They were married three years after meeting.
During his time with Brittany, Jonathon truly put his life together and found a drive to keep himself focused. He went to school, got a degree in accounting, and started his first business as a professional resume writer. Their family slowly grew. First, they got two cats in two years, and then a dog after buying their first home. Finally, they had their first child; a beautiful and smart little girl. During the time when Jonathon took a year to focus on his resume writing business, he decided he really wanted to write a book. This book was intended to be about business success, personal development, or why service is so important. In the end, Jonathon didn’t have as much to say on any of those subjects as he had originally thought.
A few months went by, and Jonathon got the itch to write again, but he didn’t know what to write about. He had just finished reading one of his favorite fantasy novel series, The Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. He thought; why not write a fantasy story? It’s what he liked to read. It might be fun. Without any intention of writing more than a short story, Jonathon began to type. Over the next two weeks, he wrote more than he had written about any subject in probably ten years.
It struck him to delve back into all those text documents from the years past, and organize them into something cohesive. Three months later, Jonathon had sorted through all the documents and had formed a story outline. Another month of tinkering on his outline and he had about thirty pages of character design, world building, and a general timeline for the characters to follow. The writing began again, and before Jonathon knew it, he had several chapters down. His first novel was well on its way. With a little guidance and some great advice from Dakota Krout, Jonathon had written his first book just a few months later.
Interested in the story of The Oreniah Codex? Copies are ready for purchase from Amazon. To stay up to date with Jonathon, follow him at www.facebook.com/TheOreniahCodex/. Feel free to reach out to Jonathon with questions or comments at TheOreniahCodex@gmail.com.