Jason Freewalt’s first book, “The Oracle of Chronos” is available on Amazon.com.
Courtesy of Mike Carpenter
LIMA — Shawnee teacher Jason Freewalt said that publishing his first book, “The Oracle of Chronos,” was a big accomplishment.
Freewalt, who lives in Delphos, wrote the story, which is about a history teacher obsessed with a mysterious watch, when he came up with the initial premise and then applied aspects of his own life to the narrative.
“I thought that this guy could be a teacher because I’m a teacher and maybe he traveled to Europe, which is something I did,” he said. “I kind of wove things from my life into my book, pulling from my own experiences and putting it together, which I suppose is something a good writer will do from time to time. And there is also a part of the book that talks about addiction in the context of the watch, which is something I pulled from a couple of friends who have experienced that, as well as depression.”
Freewalt had never written a book before but had experience writing research papers.
“But it was a neat experience to write it and learn a lot about the publishing process,” he said. “A lot of my own stories and those of other teachers are kind of neat to put on paper because I tell them every year to my students.”
The story takes the main character, Jake, on a journey through time as he draws on his knowledge of ancient history to uncover the mysteries of the watch.
“When I was writing the book, I thought of telling my students the story of the minotaur and the labyrinth,” Freewalt said. “And so I just decided to type that story along the way as an anecdote in the book and then fleshed out the character’s life. And then I added more stories from Greek, Roman and medieval mythology.”
Freewalt, who teaches social studies and coaches cross country at Shawnee Middle School, also said it was a way of preserving his own history.
But the most important thing is that readers enjoy the story and maybe learn a little about history from it.
“I had a friend of mine read the book who never really liked history, but they told me how much they liked how I worked the history into the story,” he said. “So hopefully, readers learn something from it and are interested in the story, but I hope that it’s just entertaining for people who are not only interested in history and fiction, but are maybe looking for something inspirational. Because the book is also about overcoming addiction.”
And it was worth it alone just to finish the story and publish it anyway.
“It’s a lot of words to put together and going through all the work of proofreading and getting suggestions is a labor-intensive process,” Freewalt said. “To finally get it to the point where I can see my cover page and my name on it was a huge feeling of accomplishment. I’ve done other things like run marathons and earn a black belt in karate, but this was just one thing that was neat to see come together for the finished product.”
For more information on “The Oracle of Chronos,” visit the book’s website and follow the links to its social media pages.
The book is only available on Amazon.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
