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PACIFIC OCEAN

02.12.2023

Story by Petty Officer 1st Class Eduardo T Otero  

USS Nimitz (CVN 68)   

PACIFIC OCEAN - Hawaii might get nuked, or maybe UFOs will start abducting Navy ships. Eventually, something is bound to happen. But before any of the action can go down, something else always comes first – something terrifying.

“The trouble every author has is a blank page,” said Lt. Cmdr. Jon Paris, damage control assistant aboard Nimitz. “It’s the most horrifying thing ever, right?”

Paris has written five short stories published by either the U.S. Naval Institute (USNI) or the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC). Three of his stories – “The Lost Fleet,” “Task Force Foo Fighter” and “Kraken” – have been submitted in a joint fiction writing contest held annually by the two organizations.

He is currently working on his next one – well, kind of.

“I have – and there’s nothing to see here – but it’s an open Word document because I’m getting ready to work on the next story,” said Paris. “I’ve had that document open for like a week on my computer, and I’ve written a few words, and I’ve deleted them. Because with these contests, there’s no real prompt other than naval fiction. The finalists, for example, were all over the place. They approach it in all different ways.”

Every contest submission is a chance for Paris to develop his writing approach, the kind you get when you let the kid of a naval flight officer and an aircraft maintenance officer – both Marines – read “Clear and Present Danger” while still in middle school.

“I remember being relatively young and picking up my first Tom Clancy novel, which is not really meant for kids,” said Paris. “That’s when I learned my love of the techno thriller, which is something Tom Clancy was particularly good at. He was the master of that and established it as a genre. Amongst other things, it was about not dumbing things down and making things technically accurate.”

Paris is no stranger to blank pages and the reward that comes in time – after keys start clicking and prose begins to take shape.

“I’ve been writing longer than I’ve been passionately reading,” said Paris. “I’ve enjoyed writing forever. I wrote silly little short stories when I was in elementary school. Then I started taking creative writing classes, and it’s just something that I enjoy.”

His foray into writing fiction seriously, however, didn’t take off until after a stint writing Navy-related, non-fiction articles.

“I tell you what, the first couple of times you get published, it’s a little bit of a rush, especially when you run into people or get messages from people who have read what you wrote,” said Paris. “It’s obviously much better when they like what you wrote, which is not always the case. I got into it, wrote more, got published more, and on and on and on. Several years ago, I decided to take a little bit of a break from articles and try to focus on fiction. When the Naval Institute got together and said, ‘We’re going to do this annual fiction contest,’ that was another driver for me, another inspiration to do that.”

When it comes to fiction writing, Paris employs the technical accuracy that he first learned from Tom Clancy – the style which made him fall in love with the craft all those years ago. For him, technical accuracy is more about being realistic than it is about showing off knowledge. Though as a surface warfare officer with almost two decades of experience in the Fleet, maybe there’s no avoiding it.

“For example, in ‘Task Force Foo Fighter,’ I worked really hard to make it very accurate,” said Paris. “A lot of that just comes from my whole life reading aviation stuff, but also from 17 years in the Navy, listening to radio comms and being on the radio myself. Part of my profession as a surface warfare officer is knowing those code words and how they fit into conversation. It's about authenticity, so for the crowd that already knows what you’re talking about, it’s authentic. And for other people, if you’re doing your job right as an author, they’ll feel like they’ve got an inside look into the real world.”

The real world has certainly supplied inspiration for Paris’ fiction writing. “Task Force Foo Fighter,” which features a dogfight between a naval aviator and an unidentified flying object (UFO), was one product of such a muse.

“I had a much easier time writing ‘Task Force Foo Fighter’ than I did writing ‘Kraken,’ because that idea had been percolating in my mind for years,” said Paris. “It’s my guilty pleasure, but I’m really into UFOs. One thing that caught my imagination when I was younger in the Navy was the stuff that started to become public about the Navy’s interaction with UFOs, all the videos that jets took of UFOs – some of them right off of this ship.”

Likewise, “Kraken,” a story about a lone Navy ship bringing the fight to the enemy in a suicide mission fueled by revenge, started with just a title and Paris’ own fondness for age-old Naval folklore.

“The only thing I had to start with was the title,” said Paris. “It was ‘Kraken.’ That’s it. I like the concept of the pirates and mariners of the olden days, sea monsters, and stuff like that. I love those ideas, the old-timey naval charts with sea monsters drawn on them with warnings: ‘Don’t go there; you’re going to get attacked by a sea monster.’ That’s a cool navy name, ‘Kraken.’ I thought, ‘I can name a ship after it.’”

Some of his inspiration also comes from admiration for other authors. Just like Tom Clancy, masters of the craft both past and present – the likes of Dan Brown, Nelson DeMille, and others – tend to find their way into Paris’ work as he develops his style.

“Tom Clancy is definitely my favorite author; and similarly, Nelson DeMille, who’s written a lot of great spy, counterterrorism, police-type fiction,” said Paris. “What I really like about him is he largely writes in the first-person, which I haven’t figured out how to do yet, and I really want to. I love reading his books because it’s written from his main character’s point of view all the time. Actually, I’ve been brainstorming for my next story, and I would love to attempt to do that. If I can mix the technical accuracy of Tom Clancy and the first-person of Nelson DeMille, I think that would be really fun to try. I don’t know if I’ll get there yet. I can write in the third and second-person pretty well, but the first-person is the next challenge. I feel like that would really broaden my horizons as a writer.”

Whatever the source of influence, Paris continues to submit yearly for the USNI/CIMSEC fiction writing competition; and with every story published, he gets closer to his goal of winning it all. With his last attempt, “Kraken,” he made the finalists for a second year in a row.

“The first year, I wasn’t a finalist,” said Paris. “The second year – that was ‘Task Force Foo Fighter’ – I was super pumped to be a finalist. To get this one (‘Kraken’) as a finalist again this year… my goal, of course, is to win, so I’ve got to keep working on it, but I’m just really excited to keep doing it.”

Competing for three consecutive years without taking home first place may not seem like happily ever after. But if Paris’ stories are anything to go by, maybe the typical happy ending is not all it’s cracked up to be – at least not without its welcome share of struggle first.

“I think if everybody is honest with themselves, happy endings are kind of a letdown,” said Paris. “At least for me, when I’m reading a novel, I think they’re kind of cheesy or a little bit weak if you get to the end and everything is restored, the good guy wins, everybody is happy, and high-five at the end. At a minimum you need the good guys to at least get banged up a bit, if not lose. That keeps you coming back for more, because everybody wants redemption.”

And for Paris, redemption may be just around the corner. With every year comes another chance to face a new blank page, a challenge he seems to look forward to with as much enthusiasm as trepidation.

“One of my biggest fears as a writer – and I would imagine most writers – is that eventually you start with a blank page all over again,” said Paris. “You’re always going to move on to the next project, and it’s blank; you don’t have an idea. But pretty consistently, with the stories that I’ve had published, they’ve all started that way. Sometimes I brainstorm and I write ideas on a piece of paper, and then sometimes I just sit there and I stare at the computer for days. My point is that without fail, once the typing starts, it just kind of flows. Yeah, I do get writer’s block; I have it right now. But sometimes it’s just about the confidence to put words on a page.”

And so, his creative task for this year’s competition begins anew. Ghosts of Sailors past might start to haunt a newly commissioned destroyer, or maybe zombies will take over isolated Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in a massive outbreak. But before any of the fun can start once again, something else has to happen first: another blank page and a blinking cursor waiting for what comes next.

• Date Taken: 02.12.2023
• Date Posted: 12.22.2023 10:48
• Story ID: 460654
• Location: PACIFIC OCEAN