By Jennifer Covington/reporter
One TCC graduate has found success with a Russian con, an Israeli woman and a young man trying to find meaning in his life.
Chase Webster was selected to publish his first novel, LA Fisher, as a part of an online contest through NaNoWriMo.org.
“The book is about a guy who moves to L.A. to find meaning and ends up turning to a life of crime,” Webster said. “He turns into a ball of depravity as monstrous on the outside as he is on the inside.”
Webster began working on the novel in Yvonne Jocks’ fall 2007 Creative Writing I class on SE Campus.
“He was a great addition to all our writing/publishing discussions and just seems to absorb information,” Jocks said.
“Though he initially planned to write screenplays, he decided to try his hand at novel writing and turned out to be brilliant at it.”
Webster’s first success came when he was just a freshman in high school. His play, Not Your Average Hero Story, was produced at the University of New Mexico.
Webster agreed to try novel writing after encouragement from Jocks and other students in his creative writing class.
“I wrote one scene for the book in her class, and people praised it, so I decided to turn it into a full-length novel,” he said.
Webster’s decision to enter the novel writing in a monthlong competition in November 2007 meant he had to start the novel Nov. 1 and finish it by midnight Nov. 30. He spent the next year and a half editing it.
“Chase’s writing style is much like his speaking style,” Jocks said.
“It’s easy and immediate with a wonderfully dry sense of humor that can sneak up on you.”
When the site NaNoWriMo.org selected LA Fisher, it began submitting the story to publishers.
In October 2008, Webster received a letter from the organization stating that CreateSpace, a division of Amazon.com, would publish his novel.
“Many of my students have the skill and imagination to be published, but some just really stand out for both their brilliance and creativity, for the self-discipline to actually finish and polish a manuscript and for the self-confidence to share that manuscript with editors,” Jocks said. “Chase is one of several students at the top of that list.”
The novel was officially released April 3 and is available at LAFisher.net.
Webster said he cites encouragement from teachers and reading the works of his favorite authors as the biggest contributors to his development as a writer.
Webster, now a journalism major at the University of Texas at Arlington, has already moved on to the next project: an untitled tie-in to LA Fisher.
