AURORA - Channeling Charles Dickens, author Lee Sheldon assumed Dickens' persona as a way to tell his own story - how he grew as a writer - during his lecture “A Writer's Life” at Wells College Friday night. The event, part of Friends and Family Weekend at Wells, was a way for Sheldon to speak while visiting his daughter Emma, a senior majoring in mathematics at Wells.

Sheldon has penned more than 200 TV shows, two books, and more than 20 video games and has just finished a feature film script with his son. He is the creative lead for a multiplayer online world, is writing a new video game and a third book. He also teaches graduate students at Indiana University's telecommunications department.

Speaking as if he were Dickens, Sheldon framed his story with a fib - “Dickens faked his own death and to the best of our knowledge is alive today.” With slides of a number of writers and actors, from Shakespeare to Lawrence Olivier, including Dickens, he called them all Dickens as he told his story.

He recited the very first poem - a song really - that “Charles Dickens” made up as a toddler while his parents were arguing: “There's a pie of gold in the sky when angels are nearby.”

Sheldon's chronology led to finally seeing his first musical, “Candlelight,” receive a standing ovation. Seated next to him, his father hugged him at the end.

He then went to Hollywood to write the screenplay “Bonnie and Clyde.”

He wrote scripts for “Charlie's Angels” and “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” among others. As head writer of the daytime series “Edge of Night,” he was nominated for best writing by the Writers Guild of America. The Mystery Writers of America nominated him twice for Edgar Awards.

Sheldon answered common questions about his craft. To “What should I study?” he answered, “A degree means nothing, What does mean something is an education because you've learned about the world. Get out and see the world. It's nothing like cable TV.”

He suggested reading what one might not ordinarily read to expand knowledge and awareness.

“Be somewhere where other writers hang out,” he said, “Hollywood or New York, not Louisiana.”

Writers have to choose a medium and a message that fit one another, he said.

Sheldon eventually wrote and designed augmented reality games to make people fitter. One game had people running all over campus to find a missing professor, and after a few weeks they were much fitter, he said.

Everyone gets a chance to fulfill his dream, but he has to recognize and react to it appropriately, Sheldon said. His break came when he attended a small dinner party in Hollywood and was looking only to write movie scripts. Two producers about to launch the “Charlie's Angels” TV series heard him speak up and hired him to write scripts.

“If you care enough about your work, then you care about the audience, ” he said. “Write things that touch people. I write because I don't have any choice,” he said. “It's not a career, it's a vocation, a need within me. I would do it for free. I have no choice.”

Staff writer Kathleen Barran can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 238 or kathleen.barran@lee.net