From the Research Lab to the Writer’s Keyboard
Columbia author’s literary path began with his daughter’s challenge.
Stephen Paul Sayers wishes he’d discovered writing thirty years ago. He has been a full-time researcher at the University of Missouri for twenty-two years focusing on exercise programs for older adults, and he’s a professor of exercise physiology. His writing muse didn’t begin filling his imagination with story plots and unique characters until his daughter, Kaylee Sayers — who wrote a novel before she turned 17 — presented him with a new challenge.
“She wrote a beautiful book, and I was just amazed by it when I read it. I remember saying to her, ‘I could never do this,’” Sayers recalled, adding that Kaylee responded, “Why don’t you try?”
Sayers researches exercise programs with older adults aimed at keeping people healthy and active throughout their lives to avoid disablement.
“The writing is way out of left field,” he said, comparing his vocational work with his experience with a laptop keyboard. “I was always a big reader in my life. I read everything growing up.”
Sayers initially brushed off his daughter’s challenge, but the thought stayed with him and eventually he took time to write a book — as a present to Kaylee. His research position gives him the freedom to travel back and forth from the East Coast — where he’s originally from — incorporating both landscapes into his supernatural, thriller, and horror genres of writing.
He has now authored six books. A Taker of Morrows is the first book of a trilogy about Robert Granville, who discovers he only has twenty-four hours to live. Beyond life, a battle between good and evil determines the fate of earthly souls. In that realm, “caretakers” guard and protect against the evil and vengeful “jumpers” who slip back and forth between worlds to prey upon the living. Granville is faced with the task of confronting an evil unleashed upon the earth by a jumper’s vengeance.
Sayers’ latest book, The Carousel Man, is about crime writer Jack Rainne who cannot shake the memory of a haunting carousel ride he took as a child. Jack sees a photo of the carousel twenty-five years later, it is in the background of an image of a missing family, and he is also in the photo. He travels back to the abandoned cornfield to find answers about why he can see dead people, what his haunting memories are about, and where his missing wife has gone.
“I remember reading the first page of the first draft of his first book. It was so literal and scientific; it was funny,” Kaylee Sayers recalled. “Watching his voice, as an author, shift and watching him be able to tap into the other side of his brain and pull that creativity forward has been awesome because he writes in a way that I’m so impressed by, in the way he does his world building and character descriptions.”
She also remembers challenging her dad to write a book.
“I encouraged him to try it because he’s always been kind of creative in a lot of ways. I don’t know if he’d even say that about himself,” Kaylee said. “For example, on Easter for scavenger hunts, he would write little clues that were poems or riddles. They were just really creative and funny. I just thought this was really in his wheelhouse like he’s already kind of doing it and thinking creatively, so that was the genesis of him starting to explore writing.”
When he began focusing on his new craft, Sayers attempted to learn as much as he could about writing, reading books on writing, and attending conferences hosted by the Columbia Writer’s Guild. He used what he learned to hone his skills and even found an agent at one conference.
“She eventually became my editor and essentially gave me a crash course in writing,” Sayers said. “It was like having a personal tutor that was working with me and the book and we put the book out.”
That book hit the market and the publisher then asked for two more books.
“It was one of these amazing things that doesn’t happen all the time,” he explained. “I was able to immerse myself in something new over a three to four-year period. Eventually, I gave [Kaylee] the book as it was being published. I think she thinks I sold out.”
His prime area of reading and writing is in the supernatural, thriller, and horror genres. His favorite authors include Stephen King, Stephen Graham Jones, Darcy Coates, Nick Cutter, and Riley Sager. Sayers’ writing process is unique to him, doing most of the writing when he’s not actually at the computer. Every night, he adds to his stories from his ideas throughout the day while he’s doing a cardio workout at the gym or taking his dog on long walks. While there are days he is not writing at all, once he starts to connect different thoughts and ideas, it’s hard to pry him away from the computer.
“Whenever the idea hits you, you can’t stop. That’s the crazy thing. I’ll start at seven in the evening and then it’ll be two in the morning,” Sayers said. “I’m like, ‘Oh my God, what happened?’ It’s a wonderful feeling. I don’t storyboard or anything. I just start up with an idea and a beginning and I think I know the end. But, I don’t even know the characters yet. They just kind of come into existence as the story is going.”
While Sayers has enjoyed his career at Mizzou, he has three to four years before he retires, at which time he will devote more time to writing.
“I have no idea where my ideas come from,” he said. “I’ll be reading a book or watching a movie, and something will come to me. I don’t keep a bank of [ideas for books]. The Carousel Man came up while I was finishing the book before it. Nothing has come up while I was writing this one, so I’m like, ‘Okay, what’s next?’ So, the answer is ‘zero.’ I’ve got nothing in there now, but I know that something will come — or at least I hope it will.”
Check out all of Stephen’s books, including 100 Things to Do in Columbia, MO Before You Die, at his website.