I
started to try and make sense. To talk to someone in an empty room. To search
for answers from the closed doors surrounding me. To try and capture a bit of
the curiosity filling my soul. I could feel God but I couldn’t make sense of
anything else. I wasn’t a troubled teen. I just lived in a troubled world and I
was a curious kid.
started to try and make sense. To talk to someone in an empty room. To search
for answers from the closed doors surrounding me. To try and capture a bit of
the curiosity filling my soul. I could feel God but I couldn’t make sense of
anything else. I wasn’t a troubled teen. I just lived in a troubled world and I
was a curious kid.
I
filled notebooks with songs and poems and little pieces of my heart. They
weren’t for anyone. Well, usually they weren’t. They were just things on my
chest that needed to be said. And since I didn’t know who to speak them to, I
wrote them down. My melancholy, misguided, and often moronic mind needed to be
set at ease. Writing would do this. Writing was an outlet.
filled notebooks with songs and poems and little pieces of my heart. They
weren’t for anyone. Well, usually they weren’t. They were just things on my
chest that needed to be said. And since I didn’t know who to speak them to, I
wrote them down. My melancholy, misguided, and often moronic mind needed to be
set at ease. Writing would do this. Writing was an outlet.
I
never stopped.
never stopped.
Yet
writing in journals and writing for yourself is far different than writing for
story. I should’ve read more. I should’ve studied more. When I started writing
fiction, I couldn’t help taking the melancholy and putting it front and center.
It’s a habit that I still can’t break. People meet me and think I’m funny but
then surely read these sad and sappy tales and probably wonder who wrote them.
The outside shell is the comedian. The inner soul is the tortured poet. Neither
really is accurate because I’m both of those and more. I’m more just like
everybody is more than a simple, square postcard people like to put you in.
writing in journals and writing for yourself is far different than writing for
story. I should’ve read more. I should’ve studied more. When I started writing
fiction, I couldn’t help taking the melancholy and putting it front and center.
It’s a habit that I still can’t break. People meet me and think I’m funny but
then surely read these sad and sappy tales and probably wonder who wrote them.
The outside shell is the comedian. The inner soul is the tortured poet. Neither
really is accurate because I’m both of those and more. I’m more just like
everybody is more than a simple, square postcard people like to put you in.
I
wrote my first novel in pencil on paper. I still have that. Each year, I can
see the writing fade just a little more. The story isn’t the important thing.
It’s what that finished novel represented. A ninth grader desperately trying to
cling on to ONE thing in his life that he could control. One thing that he
could make his own. Somehow, in some messy way, he managed to finish that
novel.
wrote my first novel in pencil on paper. I still have that. Each year, I can
see the writing fade just a little more. The story isn’t the important thing.
It’s what that finished novel represented. A ninth grader desperately trying to
cling on to ONE thing in his life that he could control. One thing that he
could make his own. Somehow, in some messy way, he managed to finish that
novel.
He’s
finished a few more, too.
finished a few more, too.
I
still find myself writing to make sense of the life around me. The older I see,
the more I find I don’t understand. Yet the more I discover God’s grace and
love. They are real and not simple emotions I feel while listening to Thomas
Newman and writing. They are real and they are powerful.
still find myself writing to make sense of the life around me. The older I see,
the more I find I don’t understand. Yet the more I discover God’s grace and
love. They are real and not simple emotions I feel while listening to Thomas
Newman and writing. They are real and they are powerful.
I
look at my flaws and then I take out the literary paintbrush and start
painting. I look at my brokenness and then I begin to try and patch the pieces
together. These paintings and pieces fit into stories in various ways. Yeah,
it’s still about me, just like it was when I was a teenager. But bit by bit I’m
learning how to tell some cool stories and how to convey some of these themes
in an entertaining and unique way.
look at my flaws and then I take out the literary paintbrush and start
painting. I look at my brokenness and then I begin to try and patch the pieces
together. These paintings and pieces fit into stories in various ways. Yeah,
it’s still about me, just like it was when I was a teenager. But bit by bit I’m
learning how to tell some cool stories and how to convey some of these themes
in an entertaining and unique way.
This
week is my five-year-anniversary as a full-time writer. I’m gonna celebrate by
writing a little more and sharing some thoughts on my blog. I still have so far
to go, but I’m grateful how far I’ve come.
week is my five-year-anniversary as a full-time writer. I’m gonna celebrate by
writing a little more and sharing some thoughts on my blog. I still have so far
to go, but I’m grateful how far I’ve come.
I’d
love to see that ninth-grader again and pick his brain. I wonder how different
it would seem to the one that fills my thoughts on a daily basis.
love to see that ninth-grader again and pick his brain. I wonder how different
it would seem to the one that fills my thoughts on a daily basis.
I
think we’d still have a lot in common. A lot.
think we’d still have a lot in common. A lot.
Much of that reminds me so much of my own writing journey. I had an old cracked leather ancient zippered notebook given to me by a co-worker in my late teens. Filled it with handwritten poems over several years. Many years later I saved just a few and tossed the notebook and those reams of poems in a dumpster near a home where I lived at the time after I got saved.
I still write. Have three self-published novels. Four more in stasis. Three more in progress. And still studying the human condition . . . Like you, the older I get the less I know and am so thankful we worship a God who knows it all. Hoping for His inspiration and relying on His insights keep me traveling . . .