Mark Terence Chapman decided to try novel writing, but couldn't come up with a worthy project at first. In 2000, he took at stab at the children's picture book market, writing With a Name like Jeremy Hippenzoodle. His next project was a novel. Most writers would have started small, with short stories, and worked their way up. He wrote the first draft of The Tesserene Imperative in 69 days, sold his first two novels to Shadowmere Publishing and has continued writing.