"Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to live."-Mark Twain

My name is Jack West.
I am a 28 year old American.
My Personal Journal: www.livejournal.com/users/jackwest/
About Me:

Born and Raised in the midwest US, I started writing at the age of 14. Mainly, writing to pass time in class. I never really thought of myself as a writer. At age 16, I won a amatuer playwriting conest for my dramatic play, Riddles (one of two of my plays, both of which has been preformed by different community theatres). After High School, I began writing more while studying Radio and Television. At 21, I changed major and began studying Fiction Writing in Chicago. Because of diffculties, I had to stop studying, but I continue writing and hope to continue my pursuit of becoming a professional author and screenplay writer. Thankfully I have the support of my wife Stefanie, who writes fanfiction. Check her stuff out:
http://www.fanfiction.net/~divaurd

Most of my stories here involve four of my supernatural characters, Sean, Mary, Saul and Alex. Here is a little background for them:
Mary Straker is a strong willed woman who lives during the colonial times in the US. Born in 1676, Mary is able to create and control fire to a certain degree. She is usually an outsider most places she goes, many times branded a witch. What has made her more of an outsider in many places is her love and marriage to a Native American boy.

Alex Sage is a quiet lonely old man. Born during The Great Depression, Alex has gone though many hardship. Most of the are cause by his gift that is also his curse. Alex can control waves of all forms light. Because of this, his skin absorbs sunlight to a much higher degree than ours. Too much can cause second and even third degree burns to him. He is forced to move from job to job, town to town, finding work where he can stay in during the day. He has a mutt that travels with him now (read The Lights of Greylite to learn more).

Sean DeTorres is my first and most written about character. Born on a farm during the sixties, Sean has the ablity to control time. Unfortunately this ability has cause him to become an unwilling time traveler, going to sleep in one time period and waking up in another. His time shifts have kept him alone and isolated from most of the world. So, he drifts alone one place to another, just trying to survive. It has been so long that he has forgotten his life before he started time shifting (around the age of 14), even when and where he was born and raised. Sean can speed up, slow down, stop, and even reverse time to a lesser degree. His ability can even be pinpointed to a small area. The more he uses his ability, the more likely he is to shift. The stories I have here are a series of stories I began while working on a novel for Sean. The series are called Holidays with Sean. I remain hopeful to publish them someday with the release of his novel.

I will put some stuff about Saul when I put up one of his stories.

I plan to continue to put stories up here and hope that someday I can annouce a book out for sale. I look forward to writing for all of you and reading your reviews

Thank you,
Jack West
July 21, 2005

Ps. I don't mind getting emails to review stories, but please realize I don't gloss over anything. I have thoughts of becoming a writing teacher someday and review a story as such. If you can't take constructive criticism, don't ask me to review. I try to help as many writers as I can, but I don't claim to be a prefect writer. I review the way I would like to be review. So. consider yourself warned and/or encouraged.