Have you ever wanted a tattoo?

If you were going to get your first tattoo, what would you get? Would it have to mean something special to you? Simply look cool? Would it be somebody's name? I ask this question as I prepare to take the plunge for my first tattoo. I've always wanted one, but could never settle on exactly what to get. Since I'm a firefighter, there is always that theme, but I wasn't ready to get a tattoo about my job just yet.

Over the years, I've considered the Pittsburgh Steelers logo, tribal stuff, or just having an artist design something cool. Heck, when I was seventeen in 1990, I wanted the Queensryche symbol on my calf. Yeah, I know. But none of those ideas really pushed me into the tattoo parlor. (Thank goodness.)

And then when I was 37 I received a publishing contract for my fantasy trilogy, The Light of Epertase. Like being a firefighter, being a published author is something I have great pride in accomplishing. And that's when the wheels started turning. No matter what happens from here on out in my writing career, the fact that my story has been published and is out there for the world to read is something that can never be taken away. Even if I never sell another book, it has been a major accomplishment in my life and one that I would like to memorialize.

The question now becomes, what will I get to celebrate achieving such a major goal in my life? Well, I wanted to have something that represented my fantasy trilogy, since that was the story that secured my first publishing contract. And what better represents fantasy than a kick-ass dragon? I've always thought dragons were super cool anyway, which is why I have one in my Epertase trilogy. In saying that, simply having a generic dragon still wasn't meaningful enough for me to put something on my back that will be there for life.

So, I sat down with the cover artist for Epertase, Steve Murphy, and started molding the idea of a dragon with something that would make the tat personal to me. Together, we came up with placing a crystal ball beneath the dragon and having a small picture within the ball that represented one of the three books. We ultimately decided on the burning castle from the cover of Book Two, A Kingdom's Fall. The tattoo was looking pretty sweet, but I needed one more thing to make it really meaningful.

You see, my son created the word Epertase when he was first learning to talk. That's where I came up with the name for the book's kingdom, the book's title, my website, my email address and everything else I could think of. The word Epertase is as dear to my heart as anything I have created and having it on my body forever is the same to me as putting my son's name there.

With a banner reading Epertase, my tattoo design was complete. Here it is if you'd like to see. I will post pics when the tattoo is finished, sometime toward the end of July. I'd have it done today if it were up to me, but the tattooist I am using has this crazy thing called a waiting list. Hm. Oh well, patience is a virtue I guess. But I hate patience.