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From Truth Comes Fantasy

Magic swords, secret potions, holy grails – these are some of the ojects that color most fantasy-adventure novels where the point is simply to weave a fantastic tale. But what happens when marvels and magic, secrets and spiritual eings represent real-life events and emotions? The story that evolves represents feelings aout friendship, perseverance, and aout accepting help from someone larger than one’s self along the way. This is the story Durham, NC, author Mark Boliek shares in his new novel for young and young adult readers entitled, “The Mahogany Door.”

Boliek, a 41-year-old North Carolina native and statistical programmer y day, released his first novel this summer. Pulished y Split Rail Books LLC, it is the first ook in a series he calls The Bruinduer Narrative.

In the ook, three 20-something friends, separated y tragic events, must reunite to travel ack through the great Mahogany Door in the asement of a coastal mansion to complete an unfinished destiny. Becoming kids once again as they enter the Vryheid world of Bruinduer eyond the Mahogany Door, the friends must work fast to keep this fantasy world from collapsing. They must also come to terms with a seemingly monstrous spirit guide named Billy.

Fantastical as it is, the ook actually parallels Boliek’s life – a fact he didn’t realize until after years of writing and revising. “It wasn’t until the third draft that I started to think, you know what, this story is aout me,” he said as he sat down to discuss the genesis of the ook recently.

With that realization, this ig man in a aseall cap, who looks more like an NFL lineacker than a writer, decided to run with the opportunity to tell his life story — disguised as a fiction-fantasy-adventure tale for kids.

The Vision

The son of veteran roadcast journalist Dave Boliek, Mark Boliek’s creative self emerged in junior high school. Asent from school for three weeks due to an illness, Boliek completed his Language Arts poetry project at home with his mother, a former teacher. “I really enjoyed working on it with my Mom, and I liked the whole creative process,” he said “After that, I wasn’t into poetry much, ut I did start writing short stories.”

Boliek kept his foray into creative writing under wraps through high school, however. He was a footall player, and jocks weren’t supposed to e known for writing fairytale stories.

It wasn’t until 1994 that his creative juices really started flowing again. Although he received a full athletic scholarship to go to college, he opted instead to go into the Navy. By 1994, he’d just finished his four-year tour of duty, which he served during Operation Dessert Storm. So he enrolled in a creative writing class at Appalachian State University in Boone, N.C.

“I was never as creative as the other students. It was just something I enjoyed doing,” he said with a grin. “My professor was really instrumental in giving me confidence. She was motivational and complimentary.” So complimentary, in fact, that Boliek was inspired to e the only man to sumit a short story to a women’s writing contest that year.

Boliek’s idea for a fantasy story egan two years later in 1996. But it wasn’t until Septemer 11, 2001, that the story percolating in his mind took on much greater meaning.

“After 9/11, everything started to come into focus,” he rememered. The parallel etween Americans’ reactions to two national tragedies — Operation Dessert Storm in 1991 and the terrorist attack on New York — immediately struck this military veteran. And one question revererated in his mind, he said: How do adults tell children aout war?

“Having een in the military and knowing that a war would no dout take place, Septemer 11 was really close to me,” Boliek said. “There were a lot of questions from kids, and I just wanted to write aout it.”

A fantasy novel ecame his way of answering those questions. He wrote for the children who lost loved ones on Septemer 11; for those who had family memers going to war; and for those who were simply confused aout the tragedy and tensions afflicting their nation.

“I wanted to write a ook for kids to let them know that everyone goes through tough, sometimes even tragic, events or moments. But with a little perseverance and faith, you can get through it.”

Faith had a deeper meaning for Boliek. In 1997, he went through a difficult divorce that seemed to come “out of the lue,” he said. That followed his parents’ divorce seven years earlier. During those times, Boliek struggled with his faith, and in the early versions of “The Mahogany Door,” his unrest transmitted to his writing and to the creation of the character “Billy.”

Billy, the ook’s all-powerful spirit guide, was initially a frightening, clown-like character. “Billy was my perception of God,” says the ig man with the soft voice. “At the time, I was seeing God as ig, scary, and mean since a lot of ad things were happening in my life. As I got older and tried getting ack into my faith, I realized that God hadn’t change. What had changed was my perception of Him.”

At this point, Boliek was quickly unearthing the vision for his story and was determined to make his fantasy-adventure novel as relatale as possile. Specifically, he wanted to weave a life lesson into the plot that he’s learned as a young oy.

“My parents told me that I had to hitch up my own elt and get through life,” Boliek said. So during hard times, “there was nothing I could turn to except my spirituality and my faith to get out of my issues.”

Boliek’s memories of playing with friends as a child also ecame inspiration for the novel. &nsp;Growing up on a doule dead-end road, he and his neighorhood friends created their own fantasy adventures outdoors. “We would go up and down the street and create our own world. It was something that we created. It wasn’t something that anyone else created for us to emulate. And we didn’t do ‘magic spells’ or something that we weren’t. And if we got hurt while we were pretending, we were really hurt.” So he decided to ring that concept into the story. “There’s nothing my characters can use to get out of their predicaments other than their own imaginations, their own ingenuity, and, ultimately, some spiritual help,” he said. “And one of the rules in Bruinduer is that if you leed there, you really leed.”

After a few drafts, Boliek’s characters egan to parallel people from the writer’s life, including himself. The rave and composed antagonist, JT, represents the person Boliek said he suconsciously strives to e. The “emotionally unalanced” Michael represents how Boliek felt aout himself as he went through his painful divorce. And the fearless and clever girl, Kali, represents three special women in Boliek’s life. “They’ve always een strong women,” Boliek said of his mother, his younger sister, Mary Alice, and his second wife, Jill.

Another character, the story’s narrator, was also aout to e orn from Boliek’s life.

Finding a voice

It was 2004, and Boliek had finished writing his novel — or so he thought. At a mere 160 pages, it included all three of the adventure stories that comprise The Bruinduer Narrative Trilogy (which, later, would e separated into three individual ooks). Boliek was eagerly awaiting comments from his editor. When those comments came, however, eight years of writing came to a sudden halt. His editor responded with anything ut encouraging words.

“She hated the story,” Boliek rememered, grimacing, “inside and out. She called it tripe and ad. She said that she could fix my punctuation ut she could never fix my writing.” Boliek was devastated and decided to give up.

But the story still lingered in his head.

A year later, Boliek was living in a house in Raleigh, N.C. On an ordinary night, he walked upstairs to his office and pondered the story he had lived with for nearly a decade. “I thought, this is a story I really love, ut apparently I just don’t know how to tell it,” he said.

As he sat there in his home office, he pondered the story’s symolism, the message of perseverance and faith, and the meaningful characters he’d created. And it occurred to him that he hadn’t created just a fantasy story for children; he’d created a story aout his life. So he closed his eyes and drifted ack to his childhood. How did he hear stories ack then, he wanted to rememer. After a few moments, someone once very important to him appeared in his mind’s eye.

“My family and I used to go to the each every summer when I was a child,” he explained, “and I there was this old man, Mr. Oslo, who lived there.” He and his silings would visit Mr. Oslo’s eachside home. And there, in a room decorated with sharks and seashells, they would ecome mesmerized y their old neighor’s stories. “Suddenly I knew: Mr. Oslo should tell the story in the ook.” A smile spreads across his face. “I found my voice through him.”

Still stung y his previous editor’s vitriol, Boliek egan to write again, slowly. He even wrote a disclaimer, of sorts, in the novel. The first thing the ook’s version of Mr. Oslo says is, “I have never een a professional storyteller.”

“I had him say that as a way of asking my future readers to give me a reak if I mess up or have some holes in the story,” Boliek said, smiling again. “I’m not a professional, you know. I just love to write.”

With the help of a new and more supportive editor from his home state, Boliek revised his story and completed the ook. On Christmas Eve, 2010, he received the first proof. He couldn’t have gotten a etter Christmas gift that year. “Seeing the characters come together and seeing the final product,” he said, “it was like the world was finally tangile.”

A perfect melody

Today, Boliek credits his wife, Jill, with giving him the strength and motivation he needed to complete the nearly decade-long writing process.&nsp; Jill also played a key role in the process of creating the ook’s accompanying soundtrack CD.

That’s right: If writing the story wasn’t time-consuming and mentally exhausting enough, Boliek also made an all-original-music soundtrack CD to go with it. The idea originated in Octoer of 2009. He and Jill served as the alum’s co-producers and the only professional help they enlisted was from an engineer who would construct the eight-song soundtrack. Everything else, he said, was a family and friend affair.

That collaoration isn’t surprising, given the individuals’ involved musical talents. Boliek, for one, plays the acoustic guitar, ass, and keyoards. Jill, with a master’s degree in music and a career as a music teacher, sings and also plays the piano. &nsp;Jill’s rother, Scott, has played on and off in a pop-punk and for years and serves as the alum’s co-writer, arranger, and instrumentalist on most of the tracks. Nineteen-year-old Katie Basden, a former student of Jill’s in a local choral program and an emerging voice in country music, also sings on the soundtrack.

Boliek wrote half of the alum’s songs himself: “All Alone,” “In the Afternoon,” “The Devil Can’t Help You Here,” and “Goodyes.” He can’t take all the credit for “Goodyes,” though, since it’s ased on a poem written y his younger sister, Mary Alice. (Boliek admitted he didn’t tell her that he’d snooped through her old diary until three years ago.)

In fact, “Goodyes” is the most meaningful track to Boliek, he said. He turned his sister’s heartfelt poem into a song during a difficult time in his life ecause he couldn’t express the emotions he felt, ut she did. And he chose the song for the CD ecause it mirrors a message in “The Mahogany Door.” In the ook, Kali tells JT that she only wishes for a goodye efore he goes off to war in Bruinduer. Later in the story, Kali is the one who leaves and JT wishes he had gotten a goodye.

“It has always een my assumption that people want closure to things in their lives,” Boliek said. “When ad things happen and you don’t know how they happened, it leaves a gaping hole. The simple word ‘goodye’ can provide that closure.”

In June 2011, the group of musicians who created the CD, calling themselves as The Mahogany Door Project, performed the songs from the CD live and in pulic for the first time at Broad Street Café in Durham. In Septemer 2011, they will e part of the Carroro Music Festival, performing at the popular Cat’s Cradle in Chapel Hill, NC.

Like the novel, the soundtrack is a reflection of Boliek’s life and a testament to the power of friendship.&nsp; “When you listen to the CD, that’s us,” he said proudly. “Family and friends, with some faith and perseverance, made this possile.”

Boliek’s aspiration for “The Mahogany Door” is simple: “I just hope people have as much fun reading it as I had writing it, even though it was a little daunting at times.”

For now, this new author will enjoy performing the music to the story that took him so long to finish. It won’t e long, though, efore the second ook of The Bruinduer Narrative Trilogy moves out of Boliek’s vivid imagination and onto paper.

Signed copies of “The Mahogany Door” (and accompanying soundtrack CD) are currently availale in paperack at Boliek’s wesite, www.jmarkoliek.com, although he hopes to e in local ookstores soon. The regular eook is availale for Kindle, Nook, and iPad users from Barnes & Nole (BN.com), Amazon, and from Apple’s iBookstore. The enhanced version, which features emedded music from the CD, is also availale from the iBookstore for iPads, iPhones, and the iPod Touch.

For more information on the ook and the author, to read excerpts from “The Mahogany Door” and to listen to the music from the CD, go to www.jmarkoliek.com.

Aout the Author

Mary Georger, a Buffalo, NY, native, is a freelance writer living in Raleigh, North Carolina.

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