Eric Schumacher: a local medieval writer

Eric Schumacher has been writing his nordic inspired stories for over 15 years.

Image provided by Eric Schumacher

Eric Schumacher has been writing his nordic inspired stories for over 15 years.

Eric Schumacher is a local writer who has been creating viking-based stories for a long time. He has been interested in Nordic history and mythology from a young age.

“I was interested [in that period] from the time I was probably eight or nine, maybe even sooner than that,” he said. “I just started reading tales about that period of time.”

While he has been interested in these stories for a while, Eric did not seriously consider writing until after college.

“I didn’t really think at that age that I wanted to be a writer, I didn’t even know that that was really a career path,” he said. “But when I would come home from school, I would actually come home and journal. And then I started actually writing stories.”

“That stopped in about ninth or 10th grade,” Eric said. “And it wasn’t until, frankly, I was in business school and it suddenly dawned on me as I was studying for a test that I love writing, and I love this medieval period of time, why don’t I just tie the two together and start writing? So that’s actually literally when I picked up a computer and started, you know, typing out stories that I had in my head.”

Once Eric started writing his own stories, he found that historical fiction was his chosen genre.

“I like to write about individuals that actually existed,” he said. “I don’t create characters out of thin air. There’s usually some sort of background on those characters.”

“[I’m writing] long after many of my characters existed, but the bones of the story are there for the individuals that I’m interested in,” he added. “So I’ll take those bones as the starting point. And then I’ll craft the tales out of that.”

While Eric creates stories about the past and tries to avoid steering away from the facts, sometimes he feels he must add his own touch to a story.

“It’s hard to veer too far from [the history],” he said. “However, at the end of the day, it’s about writing a good story that is enjoyable to read. I’ll put in historical notes, where I let the readers know this is where I veered a little bit from history, this is where I’ve kept it in.”

Eric has been writing since he was a kid, but when he began seriously making stories, he ran into several roadblocks.

“The first book took me 10 years,” Eric said. “I didn’t have a whole lot of extra time. And I had never sort of ventured down this path of writing a book before. I equated a lot to actually climbing a mountain, where I would climb up and then there would be multiple forks in the road. And then I would choose the wrong fork, and then I’d have to backtrack.”

However, Eric was able to get past these issues.

“It was a big learning curve for me with that first novel, which is partly why it took so long as well,” he said. “But afterwards, after I did that first novel, I took a lot of the mistakes that I made and kind of decided I wasn’t going to make those mistakes again. So the next novel took probably five years. And then after that, I’ve been able to produce one a year. So each year, I’ve gotten sort of better and better at the process.”

One of the things Eric has learned from writing was a way to get into the proper writing mindset.

“I will go to the chapter that I just wrote, maybe halfway through, and I’ll read through it,” he said. “And as I’m reading, I’m editing, but I’m also putting my mind back in that space and that time. So I know by the time I get to the new chapter, where I want to start, what would make the most sense and how to build from there.”

Eric also believes that people should try writing if they are interested in it.

“I would pursue whatever your passion,” he said. “One of my mistakes early on was I did not pursue my passion of writing. I didn’t even know that it could be a profession. You have to start somewhere. So you got to just put yourself out there, give it a shot and, and, you know, write your stories.”

Eric has written two series set in medieval history, along with a standalone novel from the same time period. He recently released his newest story, Wolves of Wagria, in mid-November. All of his books can be found on Amazon for sale in physical or digital format.

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