His name is Daniel Wayne Corey III and he is a writer. He stands seemingly beaten down but with a determination in his eyes in a room that seems to transport you to a world of fantasy. Starting from the beginning he tells his story. It all started when his sixth grade teacher placed a picture at the end of the classroom each week and had the class write a story about it. He ended up liking it and continued to write despite being made fun of and laughed at by everyone including his family. “After that I read ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,’ which gave me even more inspiration to write.”
But what he didn’t know was that despite his feeling as though everyone was against him, his best friend, Troy Bragg, was behind him from the start secretly giving him inspiration in the simplest ways. “In my mind I felt that doing the crazy things we did and knowing that he was a writer would give him inspiration,” Troy said. His best friend continued to give him inspiration by saying things out of the blue. “Look at that eagle flying high, looking down over a roaring waterfall into the mist of fallen souls. And our problems are solved,” Troy said. Growing up, Troy continued his attempts to give Daniel inspiration by saying this: “Hey bro, what do you see in the wind, in the trees, in the sky? Look closely. What do you see?” By seventh grade Daniel was on a college level for English and writing. “I should have been an author a long time ago but people and life have beaten the inspiration right out of me,” Daniel said.
Daniel attended four different colleges The first was UMPI where he majored in recreation and leisure services and minored in criminal justice but was unable to finish due to money problems. A few years later he attended Washington County Community College for welding. He also attended NMCC where he studied lead abatement and hazardous waste operation. The most recent university he has attended is Full Sail Online University. He studied creative writing for entertainment.
Daniel’s passion for writing led to him going above and beyond just writing for fun by creating an entire world, which he described. “Well, I created a world called Twilight Earth. Tolkien created a world called Middle Earth, C.S. Lewis created Narnia and J.K. Rowling created Hogwarts, so I created this place in between a dreamlike area.” The book he is writing is called “The Realm of Dreams, Dream Wars, Galaspian’s Journey.” It is written in a mix of first and third person. “My main character, Galaspian, is keeping a journal throughout the story. There was something called the Storm of the Realm of Dreams that came to Twilight Earth and the storm started taking upon itself all the evil dreams of mankind. And all these evil creatures started spawning from these dreams created by the Storm of the Realm of Dreams,” Daniel said.
On average Daniel has 11 characters on stage at one time and there are well over one hundred characters involved. He has gone out of his way to create a story that will transport his readers into Twilight Earth, going as far as creating kingdoms and sociology. Every character and race has a history. His determination and passion are reflected in his eyes as he speaks about his book. He could have gone with Dourness Publishing but he decided to back out because once he gave them his book, if it didn’t do well it was in the garbage. He also got an offer from a publishing company out of New York. He did his research and found that J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling and C.S. Lewis–three authors whom he looks up to as a writer–all did self-publishing and then sent them to a publisher, giving them full control over their books. He intends to do the same thing.
But Daniel isn’t just a dedicated writer. He is also a dedicated family man working to provide for his family. He has had to make a lot of sacrifices to provide for his family. He has a wife named Vera to whom he has been married to for 13 ½ years and two sons Jeffrey, 19, and Stryder, 12. Vera has seen her husband go through a lot as a writer. “At some points I have seen his joys and happiness. Most times I
see the struggles and hardships that he has gone through to get to this point in his writing. He has mad heart that gets poured onto paper when he is in total focus. Outside influences have a lot to do with these struggles, but once his heart takes over and the focus is there, then nothing can stop him.”
Family means everything to Daniel and he has brought the imaginations of his family to life. Daniel doesn’t think his writing has affected his family much. “Well, I guess it hasn’t really affected them, except for my niece Tiffy. She wants to be a writer too and I spend a lot of time with her just teaching her how fun writing is. It all started with just this plain old box I painted up and put in front of her when she was little. She asked, ‘What’s this uncle?’ I said, ‘it’s your imagination box.’ ‘What’s that?’ I said, ‘Your imagination box is whatever you want in there can be in there.’ And I guess she started writing and telling stories.”
Daniel works at Job Corps to support his family. The atmosphere can be daunting for a creative writer but he struggles along. Daniel is trying to create a writers guild there to help support himself and other writers within Job Corps.
Daniel’s determination is strong and his heart is pure. His advice to those who wish to become or are already writers is this. “Stay as unique and original as possible. DON’T get sold out on commercial business because if you do, your work will be big for a while and then it will just get put in the can no matter what the cost or sacrifices. Create something that will stand the waves of time. Write what’s in your heart. Let your characters lead the way. They will form the story for you: just follow behind them writing and believe me they’ll tell you the story as you go through their world they’ll take you to different places. Just keep following behind them. Create a couple of good characters and just write the story.
