Knowing he was nearing retirement, in 1987 he began an effort to rid himself of the Tech/How-To style of writing necessary in the military by drafting his first novel, Grains of Sand. It was a character based, SciFi novel. Later, after retiring in June, 1993, he edited the story and posted extracts on the internet to measure reader response where it was well received. A portion of it has even found its way to another webpage where someone found it quotable.
Later, as Mr. Carroll settled into his new life as an auto repair shop owner/operator, he spent some time entertaining friends and acquaintances writing short stories for them on line. One Christmas he wrote a small piece about the depression so many people experience during the holiday. It was so well liked he later decided to expand it. That expanded passage now serves as the first chapter of "The Gift: A Christmas Story" currently in print and ebook and being sold in the US, England, and Germany..
"The Gift: A Christmas Story" by R. Louis Carroll, ISBN 1587213826, is a bittersweet story about a mechanic who lacks any real understanding of the meaning of Christmas, seeing it more as a commercial venture then a holiday. One Christmas Eve, after a long day of work, he falls asleep on his couch with his two Basset hounds, Scooter Drop Downey and Jethro Bodine DeBasset by his side. He wakes within a dream as a dog lost and near death in a deep, winter forest with no memory of who he is or how he got there. He is found by a young lady with two dogs of her own, Scooter and Jethro. He spends a year in this dream learning the meaning of Christmas through the eyes of a dog.
Though this story is best classified as "Young Adult", all of his sample readers were over 40, and all, without exception, raved about the story. It has no violence, no drugs, no alcohol, and no foul language making it suitable for even the youngest readers. The trade paperback version is 136 pages. Mr Carroll crafted the story to ensure its length would not be so great as to scare off younger readers. Even the chapters are divided in such a way that they make suitable reading to even the youngest members of the family, a chapter at a time, at night.
More information about the story, as well as his other literary efforts, is available at the Homepage of Fiction Author R. Louis Carroll. There you will find a sample chapter and a photo album which include actual pictures of Scooter and Jethro.