Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
It would be easy to say that Ted Lazaris has led a charmed life; but the fact is that, along with some amazing bits of luck, Ted’s considerable success is due to a lot of plain, hard work.
“I’ve worn a lot of different hats,” says Ted when asked about his experiences. “I’ve worked in retail sales, the medical field as an anesthesia technician, in the printing industry, and I have even owned my own business, among other things.”
But the “hat” that Ted enjoys best is that of a novelist. “I like to think of my books as modern day fables for the young and the young at heart”, he says about “Dragon Man, The Adventures of Luke Starr” and “Dragon Man and the Poseidon Encounter”, his two published novels.
Born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ted grew up playing in the woods near his home. By his own admission, he wasn’t too interested in reading when he was a boy. “I was the kind of kid that spent as much time as I could outside,” he explains. “Nevertheless, I did enjoy reading Dickens and Twain,” he adds.
When asked about the source of inspiration for his books and about his fertile imagination, Lazaris responds that both his writing and his ideas probably had their roots in an event that happened during his early childhood.
“I was 8 years old,” he recounted, “and, being a boy that loved to play in the woods, I climbed a very tall tree. Somehow I lost my grip and I fell. During the fall, it seemed to me that time was suddenly suspended—as if it had come to halt. I saw a bright light and a voice that seemed to emanate from it that assured me I was not going to die.”
That singular experience imbued in him wonderment at the unseen and undiscovered mysteries of life.
Ted’s life again gave signs of apparently being charmed when at 17, while disposing of cardboard in an incinerator, shotgun shells that had been inadvertently thrown into the fire went off with a terrific blast, spraying pellets and shrapnel in every direction.
“They told me I should have been killed in the blast,” Ted remembered. Yet, it was evident that something or someone was working overtime to protect him and inform him of important happenings in his life because some years later another incident signaled that another important event was going to happen.
His life had followed an apparently normal course for Ted: he got a job, he married and had children; but then, one day, when he was 27, he suddenly woke in the middle of the night. Again he saw a blindingly bright light before him. “What’s wrong,” his wife asked, alarmed by the way he’d sat up.
“Someone in our family has just died,” he responded. The next day, a phone call informed him of the very sad news: his aunt, with whom he had been very close, had died. But the most astounding part was that she had died on the night, and at the very same time that Ted had awaken to see the blinding shaft of light.
That wasn’t the last time Ted had such an amazing experience. A couple of years later, as he was driving in downtown Milwaukee accompanied by his wife, the image of his wife’s younger brother suddenly appeared before him. Shaken by the sight, Ted had to pull over to the curb.
“What’s wrong, Ted?” his wife asked.
“We’d better go to your mother’s house,” he answered quietly.
Upon arrival at his mother-in-law’s home, Ted and his wife were informed that her younger brother had died of a gunshot wound.
The years after that occurrence passed uneventfully. Ted worked at various jobs and he and his wife went about the chores of any normal family: raising kids, working diligently, buying a home.
Yet, once in a while, strange things would happen. “One day,” Ted remembers, “I saw a white feather falling from the sky. It fell right in front of me. My mother had recently had surgery; I suddenly had the intuition that something had happened to her.” He said to his wife, “I think my mother has just died.” And, in fact, it was true: his mother had just passed away.
Ted’s incredible luck and extraordinary intuitions might have remained just a curiosity in his life but for the fact that one day, while out shopping, he was drawn to a book he saw on the shelf of a store. It was L. Ron Hubbard’s “Scientology: A New Slant on Life”.
Giving in to a compulsion to buy it, he took it home and placed it on his nightstand; “But,” he recalls, “I did not open it or attempt to read it.”
Then, during the nights of the following days, he began to experience unusual flows of perspiration, as if he were racked by anxiety. As if to relieve an unexplainable impulse he began to write. The result was the first of his two marvelous Dragon Man fables.
“The strange thing about this is,” he says musingly, “I never aspired to become a novelist.” Yet, as they say, the rest is history because Ted Lazaris is now the proud author of not only one, but two refreshingly entertaining books which have been not only well received but have been optioned by executive producer Mario Domina, President of Thunderball Films, who will develop screenplays from the published works as a Feature Franchise.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
DragonMan – Face Of The Unknown
War Of The Worlds
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I write at any time of day in any place.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
H.G.Wells
What are you working on now?
Another DragonMan novel
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
Using a lot of the free sites out there, to promote my book when it’s a free giveaway.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t give up.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Take your own advice.
What are you reading now?
Lew Hunters screenwriting 434.
What’s next for you as a writer?
At this time I’m working with Thunderball Films LLC. Trying to get my novels I up on the big screen.
What is your favorite book of all time?
War Of The Worlds
Author Websites and Profiles
Ted Lazaris Website
Ted Lazaris Amazon Profile