Timothy Jones - Tibtarnitallimardarian

Dedicated to Chris,

without whom this book may have never been written

and

To Maria,

who kept me going, writing through the final pages

The idea for this book popped into my head in 1979 as a title,general concept and quickly sketched (on graph paper) map. Two thingswere hugely popular at the time: Dungeon and Dragons, and J.R.R.Tolkiens The Lord of the Rings. And it was these two things thatinspired me.

I never played the game beyond a few tentative times with"beginner" friends, but through the last two years of high school Iwatched obsessed friends and acquaintances play it endlessly. Everybreak between classes, expected study periodsanytime they could findthey huddled in corners with graph paper (to map dungeons) and dice ofnumerous shapes, whispering and rolling and searching out dungeonlevels. It was wild to see, and for those so totally obsessed with it, alittle creepy, too It was like the game had taken over their lives.

When it comes to The Lord of the Rings, a new box set of thetrilogy, plus The Hobbit, was published, and I snapped it up. I readThe Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring fairly quickly, but in myyouth reading all that background material at the latters end was toomuch for me, ending my continuing of the series. It would be yearslatera lot of growing upbefore I completed the series. Be that as itmay, what I read of J.R.R. Tolkiens masterpiece at the time inspired mybook idea.

I thought it would be hilarious to take a High Fantasy adventureand fill it with goofy characters and a touch of reality. Oh, I knew theidea was a good one, but time and again during its development Istumbled. Something was missing! And my full speed imagination simplycould not create it. Believe me, I really tried, but I just was not upto the job. So the great idea, the High Fantasy comedy I felt certainwould be a laugh riot floundered.

Then one day I visited my friend Chris

What can I say about Chris? He is intelligent, creative and oneof the funniest men I know. He could have you rolling on the floorlaughing at the drop of a hat.

While I was developing a comic takeoff on the literary end of thetwo obsessions, Chris had been developing a comic takeoff on the gameend. This came in the form of creating hilarious types of dwellers tofill his dungeons, and as he read them to me I laughedand realized someof these just might fit in my book idea. I brought the idea up to himand he loved it, and thus a writing partnership was formed.

In one night he and I created a story from my general concept,inserting those of his creations that fit and adding a few new ones thatcame to us along the way. The question now was: How do we write it? Itwas decided each of us would write a version, which I would then uniteinto a single manuscript Chris turned out to be a quicker writer thanI, giving me his version before I had barely begun mine. There is nodenying my writing pace at the time could have been left in the dust bya snail.

Little did either of us know at the time disaster awaited ourpartnership.

That disaster came in the form of a drunken teen driver whoplowed into the side of my car one July night in 1980. I suffered asevere head injury, broken neck and right forearm, along with othercuts, bruises and abrasions that come with being thrown from a car anddrug down the street. The teen walked away unharmed.

I will not take you through the year plus of my time in thehospital after the Doctors who saved my life patted themselves on theback for their good deed done, with the addendum: "but Id hate to livethe hell his life is going to be." Leave it to say, I was fortunate torecover fully from my head injury, yet I was left a quadriplegic facinga new life. And that life was far from the "hell" the Doctors predictedall because I had loving Parents who were determined to give me the bestlife they could. They sacrificed their lives for meand that makes meforever grateful for their undying love and sorrowful for their lossofwell, freedom.

Anyway, when I finally came home from the hospital my Parentsbought me a typewriter (this was a scant few years before the PC age),as I was a would-be writer and wantedneeded to write. One of the firstthings I wanted to write was this book. That was when I discovered thesituation behind it had changed. Not only had Chris' version of thestory been lost in moving boxes during my recovery, but my friend hadmoved on with his life, which took him beyond our co-writing endeavor.Yet he was enthusiastic for me to carry on with the project, offering mebackground material for creatures he brought into the story, and so Idid.

It was a struggle to do it on a typewriter, but eventually Ipounded out a draft of the story, which turned out to be novella length.I was not happy with its shortness. But I had finished it!

When I read a chapter or two to Chris and other friends theylaughed, which made me happy. My idea, bolstered by Chris' invaluableinput, was becoming what we dreamed it would be. Yet it was too short.It was supposed to be a book, not a novella. In my inexperience as awriter, I did not see the two things missing that would have lengthenedit into a book, so I turned to another avenue to beef up the story intobook length. Originally I had thought of making it a trilogy like whatinspired it, and after we plotted the book out Chris and I had tossedaround a few titles for future stories, including for the trilogy. Well,I took up the second titleThe Babyand developed it into a story, andI wrote it, adding a short entitled In Between to fill in whatoccurred between the two stories. The second story was a novella thatput me closer to book length Instead of taking up the third book of thetrilogy, however, I was inspired to pound out a side story entitled TheStrange Little Adventure of Tarl Bimbo, with plans to work on the finalbook of the trilogy after.

Sadly, it was not to be.

The silliest of things led to disaster. Remember, back in the eraof typewriters prolific writing meant stacks upon stacks of paper. Well,I had my fair share of themtall stacks indeed. And they resided on my"typing table," a place I thought safe for the future. Then came theneed to replace the carpet, which my wheelchair tires had done a badnumber on, and that meant moving all the furniture out of the room. Thatalso meant my stacks of papers needed to be put in a "safe place." I wasnot worried, though I should have been.

Upon refurnishing the room, all the furniture made it back safeand sound, but when it came to my stacks of stories, not all were found,and amongst the lost stories was The Strange Little Adventure of TarlBimbo. My heart was broken. My desire to continue working on this storyand its sequel, which had been found, just was not there. I had so manystories, ideas and poems lost. Besides, I just was not up to writingmuch of anything for a while. Yet my Muse would not let me remain idlefor long. After a few days of pouting, I started over again, and boy,did I! All types of new ideas flowed out of me so fast that I ended upcreating even more stacks of incomplete stories. It was amazing.

Then in 1984 I joined the computer age when my Father introducedme to a Leading Edge PC and printer. A \$1,500 leap I nervously made,thinking how great it would be to write without creating stacks ofpaper. I also saw it as a blessing in my journey through The Universityof Alabama where I had to transcribe recorded notes from class, which Ihad been doing via the typewriter. I entered my studies in 1982 andcompleted them in 1988 with a degree in Communications emphasis on FilmProduction and minors in Human Resource Management and Creative writing.That is six years of writing term papers, etc., and yes, the PC was ablessing indeed.