My fascination with writing started somewhere along Interstate 80. Traveling back and forth between my parents’ houses. So many miles rolling by out the window, sagebrush zooming past and asphalt under tires, cruising across the deserts and salt flats. There is only so much to see on those barren spans, especially when you have seen it so many times before.
From the boredom of nothingness on repeat, I took to the books (this was long before my first Walkman). In the beginning was the word… I was a hesitant reader at first, but as I dove deeper and deeper into prose and then poetry, I became obsessed. Soon I was a voracious reader and a determined but sporadic writer. I was a farmer planting seeds on a whim and wandering ever onward, never seeing the growth or fruition of the seeds I had planted.
As my journey continued and my writing and my taste in literature evolved, I began to realize that just having a ton of ideas (often half-formed and abandoned before completion) and a smattering of completed work wasn’t enough. I needed goals! Systems! Challenges! Maybe even guidance… I was young, poor, and didn’t have a mentor at the time, so I began to form these things myself.
It took a lot of trial and error, many unfinished attempts, as well as plenty of finished subpar attempts, to realize how I successfully bring a project to completion. Writing is a process, and processes are much easier with systems in place. A realized creator is one who understands the systems which help them transmute thought to form with beatitude and even bliss. In other words, when one submits to self-imposed goals and expectations, they become free.
The realization that I needed to set goals, deadlines, office hours, and work schedules for myself was foreign at first. I started doubted the point of it, until I got published in a handful of small poetry publications. This was the reassurance I needed. I had taken an idea in my head, jotted a poem and edited it, wrote an inquiry letter, and saw my idea in physical and digital print—foreign and domestic! I had created form from thought! I could dream something into existence!
This initial realization had tapped the vein of creation! I had become an alchemist, he who can transform lead to gold. I began writing hundreds of poems, this led to songs, fiction and nonfiction, scripts, even essays for academic conferences.
All the while, I have never stopped reading and traveling. In fact, my first full-length non-fiction manuscript was about my time hitchhiking thousands of miles around the West Coast—Interstate 80 included!
After nearly two decades, I am still early in my writing journey. I will continue putting pen to paper for many years to come. It is my pleasure to offer my experience and insight to help you realize your own writing goals and dreams.
I look forward to writing with you!