This is the first installment of On Writing Wednesdays, enjoy.
I got involved in writing because I’ve always loved words. I remember being five and begging my mom for a notebook and filed it with symbols in my attempt to write. As the years passed I’d make up little stories in my head, then began to put them on paper.
I’d read the dictionary for fun and at one point thought about becoming a linguist. It was in high school that I began writing poetry. I got top marks in English and was encouraged to take a creative writing class my senior year of high school. But I declined.
I didn’t feel like anything I wrote was ever good enough so I always wanted to go back and edit, re-edit, and edit some. The result being numerous piece that were never finished and a growing list of plot bunnies that I never got around to doing.
My rhetoric professor encouraged me to pursue writing if that was what I wanted, but I always felt torn between my love of science and words. I was twenty when something changed in me.
I was sick of reading story after story yet never found someone like me. So I set out to write my own stories that weren’t all about the same generic WASP whose only problem was getting a boyfriend. There have been several false starts along the way but I know now why that is.
I was writing for the wrongs. I wanted to be showered with praise and fame, but that is not what writing is about. It is about transporting readers to a world they feel safe, they feel loved, and most of that they matter. I write for all those lonely LGBT boys and girls out there on the edge who think no one cares about them.
It is my mission as a writer to let them know they’re not alone. There will be times when every step is a battle but you’ll get through it because you’re stronger than you know. When you feel like you can’t take it anymore look inward and you’ll find the strength to carry on. You will fail, you will get lost, you will lose hope, but never surrender, because there will be peace when you are done.
It is my sincerest hope that my words touch some kid out there and (s)he finds that inner strength to make through another day, and another. If I never make a dime from writing so be it. There are thing more precious than silver and gold.