Author Curtis Oddo M.D.
Curtis Oddo M.D. was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. He is 47 years old. He has two teenage children, Tabalitha and David. He went to school at the University of Illinois for undergraduate and medical school. He did his pediatric residency at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin and finished his residency in 1993. He has been a pediatrician since 1993 and initially practiced pediatric medicine in Central Illinois. He also did a little child abuse work as a medical examiner there but mostly primary care pediatrics. He now lives in Ashland, Oregon. He became the Medical Director of the Jackson County Children's Advocacy Center in 2000 and specialized in medical evaluations of children who had been physically or sexually abused. He specialized in child abuse for eight years and then the funding for his position ran out. He went back into primary care pediatrics at Providence Health Center in Medford, Oregon where he currently works.
"I always wanted to write my own classical fantasy story and I had in my mind for years a storyline and characters for a book. I never had the time to write it though. In March of 2008 I was going through some hard times; I lost my job, my marriage, and all my money simultaneously. I sold my sport card collection and bought a computer and a computer desk and decided to write my fantasy story dedicated to others that were going through hard times. I wanted it to be easy to read, fun to read, and easy for the reader to escape into that fun story."
Inspiration and Originality
One of the common questions that is asked of me as an author is “What inspirations did you use when you were writing your book “The Crimson Battle Axe?” My answer, because I like classical fiction, contain the books that leap to my mind, “The Three Musketeers”, “Robin Hood”, and “Zorro” and other classical fiction hero stories. But I did not use those books as a sort of template; it was more of the desire of my book to have the same feel, the same fun as those books. There were other books that influenced my writing, a romance story, “The Black Flemings” by Kathleen Roberts because of her descriptive writing skills. There was another book which had poignant writing about vanity called “Eleanor Dayton”. She used her characters to explore vanity from different perspectives which I found fascinating. Lastly, a brilliant book by Ray Bradbury called, “Zen and the Art of Writing”. Very inspirational book for a new author and the part he wrote about how his subconscious affected his writing was revelatory. I tried to make my book as original as possible, with as many original elements that I could to make the story fun to read. Having said that, I read lots of books, I see lots of movies, read comics as a child, and I am sure subconsciously a conglomeration of elements from those stories leak into my writing. Also, according to Ray Bradbury, my life experiences leak onto the page as well. These subconscious elements appear unavoidable for any writer. I realize there are tons of writers that have been inspired by “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and while I have read and liked “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”, my book is not a “Lord of the Rings” story. I actually had trouble writing the villain character for my book until I read a non-fiction book, “The Fabulous Ego”. It is about ancient rulers who had all the people, all the wealth, all the political influence in the world and what they were like. Those rulers were definitely a blueprint for the actions of the villain in my book but the character itself is original.
One of the other related conversations I have with my friends is about originality. “Avatar” and “Star Wars” have elements in them similar to stories like “John Carter Warlord of Mars” and other western hero stories. From my perspective, western culture has its type of hero story, which can be traced back to “The Odyssey”, “The Iliad”, and later “Beowulf”. Superman has his one weakness kryptonite sounds a lot like Achilles, etc. Most western authors of hero stories borrow elements from the heroes from our western culture. To truly write an original western hero story, you would have to borrow elements from eastern heroes which are much different from western ones. But to say someone’s work is totally original, in my mind, you would have to go back to ancient Greece. James Bond, Strider, etc have ties back to those legendary myths. Not that this is bad, each western hero has its own unique twists and turns, insights, new elements, and I love reading them. For all I know, Homer looked on ancient cave walls and saw paintings by cavemen and was inspired by them. But to find similar elements in western hero stories is not surprising. It just needs to have fresh elements, fresh perspectives, and new twists to be fun to read.
The Crimson Battle Axe on Amazon
Dr Oddo's TV Interview
http://www.ktvl.com/video/c/1155263524/local-news/1279380895001/news
Where Author Curtis Oddo M.D. can be found:
Website www.crimsonbattleaxe.com
Blog www.crimsonbattleaxe.wordpress.com
His book is available at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and Lulu.com. Locally they can be found at Bloomsbury Books, More Fun Comics, Village Books, and Iguana Comics.
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