One day, an idealized number of years ago, a little boy told his mother, “I want to write books!” His mother smiled and supported him. She showed him how to cut a brown paper grocery bag in the right way to have 10-15 blank pages to staple together. Th
e boy promptly wrote and drew a story of superheroes versus Godzilla. And aliens.
A few years later, the boy announced that he wanted to learn how to type. After all, how could he become a writer without typing? He saved his money and his dad took him to the local pawn shop, where he bought a beat-up blue manual typewriter. He borrowed a textbook from the library and worked through the lessons all alone. It wasn’t long before he was able to move on from stick figure comic books.
For a time, he dabbled in mystery stories, like the Hardy Boys, but soon returned to the fantastic worlds that so filled his imagination (fired by Lewis, Tolkien, Lawhead, and others). He typed stories of superheroes and monsters, swords and laser guns.
When he reached college, he majored in Writing, learning all he could about the English language, the process of writing, and more. He tolerated the technical side and reveled in the creative. His teachers enjoyed his talent and encouraged him to use it.
Then “real life” took over. Out of college, he had to find a real job, and no matter how he searched, the jobs never had much to do with writing. He plugged away on a massive fantasy novel, but it slowly got pushed aside. He got married, had kids. All forms of writing got pushed farther and farther aside, becoming abandoned for years at a time. For a short while, he found new hope in writing book reviews and started a website, but that too had to be abandoned because of busyness.
Which brings us to the present. I’m no longer the little boy. The typewriter is long gone, as is college. The pressures of life have not subsided, but the desire to use my writing talent has returned with a fervor.
And so the writing journey had a resurrection in 2015. I’ll tell you more about that next time…
Category: Writing
Welcome to my blog! Most likely you’re here because you followed one of my social media links. Or maybe you just like to browse every new blog that comes along. (In which case, I want your job. How do you have that much free time? There’s over 100 million blogs, you know!)
In any event, this is my newest outlet for my writing, a place where I can ramble on a bit more than I do on Facebook and far more than is allowed on Twitter (unless you cheat and post a screenshot of a bunch of writing).
At this point, some of you may be wondering if I’m going to end every single paragraph with a parenthetical statement. (The answer is: no, I’m not. I actually have a bad habit of using ellipses more than parenthesis…)
The focus for this blog is my writing. Over the coming weeks, I’ll elaborate more about what I’ve written, what I’m planning to write, and so on. I’ll also go into the writing process, where I get ideas, books I’m reading, and so on.
I will not be using this blog to discuss politics. I have political opinions, but I’ve learned over the years that the internet is the worst place to share them. If you want to talk in person about politics sometime, I’m game. But I won’t be doing it here.
I also won’t be talking much about my personal life outside of how it relates to writing. That’s what Facebook is for, to share those things with my family and friends. (It’s also not for politics.)
I also will not be doing much talking about my faith here. As much as it is an essential part of who I am, it’s not the topic of this blog. Again, I would love to discuss it in person, but this is not the place, except as far as it relates to writing.
In case I haven’t made it clear… this blog is about writing! My primary writing focus right now is a YA (Young Adult) fantasy novel named Viridia. The novel is complete and I’m seeking just the right literary agent to help me sell it. If it works out, this could be the beginning of a series. More on that later.
For now, I’ll go play with the design and settings of this site some more until I’m happy with them. I look forward to sharing with you all!