Former student reflects on 20-year book effort

by Shannon Harrison
feature editor

A former TCC graduate has kept busy trying to write his way to the top.
DL Tolleson has released a novel that he has been writing for 21 years.
“I have rewritten this book eight times,” he said. “I started when I was 13, and I wanted to do a $6 million man type of novel, but as it evolved, it was much more.”
The novel, The Gray Stopgap, is about a government agent plagued by wartime memories and betrayal.
It spans more than 20 years and contains double agents, assassins, underwater adventure and sub-orbital dogfights and delves into a tragic love story woven between flashbacks and reality. Everything in the book is based on truth.
“The science used in the novel already existed or was on the drawing board,” he said. “I keep a number of reference materials handy for just such reasons.”
The book has also had three staff recommendations at various Barnes & Noble bookstores.
“I was excited when the staff at Barnes & Noble recommended my book,” he said. “When my publishing company, The Lighthouse Press, was releasing my book, I told them that I didn’t want to promote or advertise it. I wanted it to be promoted by the readers who liked what I wrote, so this was a great thing for me.”
Tolleson attended a few of the TCC campuses and received an A.A. and an A.A.S. as well as journalism and photography recognition while he was a student.
On the South Campus, he was photography editor for The Reflector, the student newspaper, when each campus had its own paper.
On NE Campus, Tolleson took classes for his legal assistant degree, which he received before his A.A. degree. He also received various awards for stories that he wrote for the newspaper.
“TCC certainly influenced me to write,” he said. “One instructor in particular is Diane Turner. I took several of her classes and ended up on the newspaper. I learned creative writing in high school, but I learned dispassionate editing from Ms. Turner,” he said.
Tolleson remembered one interview in particular.
“Turner sent me back three times to get more information from this man, and the story ended up winning an award because she submitted it for competition,” he said.
Tolleson said Turner also had an impact on helping him develop an editorial point of view.
Tolleson said he would often go to the newsroom after hours and work on his story.
Since his TCC graduation, Tolleson spent 14 years doing litigation support for a law firm in Hurst. He also does photography on the side, stock trading and writing.
When Tolleson was looking to get his book published, he went with a new technology called print on demand, which allows a book to be printed on a computer leaving everything you save.
“Print on demand is a vanity press,” he said. “I was able to put a copy of the novel in the hands of my mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s while she could understand things. It made her happy to see my finished product.”
“However, the bad side to this is that print on demand has a bad reputation in the book publishing industry because they allow anything in, so I wasn’t getting anywhere,” he said.
A writer friend then recommended Tolleson to Lighthouse Press in Florida. When he sent his book, the company accepted him.
Tolleson will begin teaching an after-school program for fifth graders. The first hour will focus on how to prepare for their statewide test and the second on creative writing.
Currently, he is writing a sequel to his first book, a science fiction piece and one or two “Fitzgeraldesque” pieces.
The Gray Stopgap is available at Barnes & Noble. For more information visit www.DLTolle-son.com.