So a little bit of a funny story, but when I was a small kid I thought you needed a license to write a book. In my head, you could get in trouble for trying to write a book, similarly to how you could get in trouble for trying to drive a car without a license. You could imagine my astonishment when my mother informed me that you didn't need anybody's permission to write. You just needed a pen, paper, or computer to start. Looking back, it probably would have been best to tell me that after I finished sweeping the kitchen floor, because as soon as I had this information, I threw the broom to the ground and raced upstairs to our family computer. It probably upset her that I did that, but seven-year-old me couldn't notice. Seven-year-old me was too busy writing.
The first book I tried to write was a fantasy book called Dragon Power, a story about a young dragon and his lizard companion who came to our world looking for a cure that would save his home from devastation. Looking back on it, I'm a little embarrassed to say that it was probably just a knock-off of Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke (although seven year old me would never admit it). As the years went on, little old me tried writing other books in an attempt to become a NYT best selling author. Such attempts included long lost titles such as Orca Rider (a Free Willy knock-off), The Language of Rats (inspired by The Secret of NIMH) and my personal favorite, The Wolfdog (a heavy knockoff of Balto).
By the time I was 12, I came to a sad realization. I realized that maybe I wasn't going to be a best-selling author before I hit puberty. In fact, maybe I was kidding myself by trying to be an author at all. I mean, what kind of author didn't have a best-selling book by 12 years old (I said as I wore my dinosaur pajamas to bed)? By the time Harry Potter was 12 he defeated Lord Voldemort twice and slayed the basilisk. By the time Percy Jackson was 12 he found Zeus's lightning bolt and defeated Ares in battle. All these amazing heroes doing amazing things, and I couldn't even spell the word "preposterous" correctly without using a dictionary.
I still can't spell that word to this day.
But something happened as life went on and I set aside my dreams of being an author. Soon I was in high-school where I wrote comedy skits for my high school's TV bulletin and got a few laughs. Then I was in college, where I discovered the beautiful art of Dungeons and Dragons, which introduced me to revolutionary new way of story-telling. Then I was out of college and in a 9-5 job where I realized if I didn't have some kind of creative endeavor, I was going to throw myself into traffic. No matter how old I was, where I went, or what I did, I wanted to write stories.
So, that's where I am right now. I am at ground zero, as I call it. There's nothing wrong with starting at ground zero, I hear most people start out exactly where I'm at. However, I realized that if I want to have a successful writing career, I was the one who needed to make it happen. Like my mom told me when I was seven, I didn't need anybody's permission to write, but at the same time nobody was going to ask me to write. I needed
to make this happen myself. So, starting with this blog, I will be updating you with how that is going. Whether I get published in one year, two years, ten years, or twenty years, I'm going to keep writing. If I'm lucky, I'll inspire one or two of your to pick up your pens and start writing again.