Richard Tipton has been charged by an elephant in Africa, stalked by a shark while scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef, and has been face-to-face with a grizzly bear, but having his first book published was one of his biggest surprises.

“This was something on my bucket list,” Tipton said. “I didn’t intend for it to be published.”

With his wife Lorry’s encouragement, Tipton moved forward.

Twenty rejection letters later, “Generations” was published.

Generations is the story of a teenage boy’s transition to manhood as he’s mentored into maturity by a loving grandfather and a girlfriend who teaches him about love and jealousy.

When the main character, Danny Parker’s parents are killed in an airplane crash, he moves away from his childhood home to live with his only relative, his grandfather.

During summer vacations, Danny travels with his grandfather to exotic locales, and the two create a lifelong bond. Then Danny meets the girl of his dreams.

“My travel experiences were a key element in the development of this story,” Tipton said. “My personal journals from Africa, Australia, Alaska and France became the outline for much of the story.”

Tipton, who said he has always been interested in writing, retired two years ago and set his mind to completing the book.

“I’ve been writing forever and kept journals on all of our travels,” he said.

Those journals became the foundation for the fictional book. Lorry Tipton said she sat down one afternoon and read the, at the time unpublished book, and knew she had to encourage her husband to get it published.

“It thought give it a shot, what have you got to lose,” Lorry Tipton said. “When we did get the letter that said they were interested, well, that was a very good bottle of wine night.”

Tipton will hold a book signing from 1 to 3 p.m. Sept. 5 at Borders in Folsom.