I’ve been thinking a lot about this writing life of mine. I wasn’t born with a pen wrapped inside my umbilical cord. I didn’t grow up with an insatiable desire to share my innermost thoughts and feelings with the world. My mom didn’t paper my nursery with my first inky scribblings, and those first early outlines and drafts aren’t fetching millions of dollars on the auction block at Sotheby’s.
I enjoyed reading as a kid, especially Robert Arthur’s Three Investigators books with Jupiter Jones, Pete Crenshaw, and Bob Andrews. I soaked up anything horror-related and always had a Stephen King novel next to my bed for late-night reading. I watched Star Trek on TV with my dad and Adam West’s Batman with my mom. Then I really geeked out when Star Wars came out in 1977.
But writing? For FUN? That wasn’t even on my radar growing up. Not even in college. Not even after marriage and kids. It never even occurred to me that I actually could write. I mean, physically, yes, I knew how to put pen to paper and fingers to keys. I had written my fair share of high school book reports and college term papers. But those were all required. I had to turn them in for grades. It certainly wasn’t because I wanted to.
The Robert Arthurs and Stephen Kings and Gene Roddenberrys and George Lucases and Steven Spielbergs of the world were magicians, sorcerers, diviners. I was just a mere mortal human. People like that were simply gifted to the Earth. They tap into some unseen power. They communicate directly with the entertainment gods to bring us knowledge and insight and enjoyment. They’re special. Their powers are on a whole ‘nother plane of existence. I had no business fooling around with magic like that. And if I ever tried, I’d likely just blow myself up.
I also had another strike against me growing up: expectation. There were always lots of answers to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Doctor. Lawyer. Fireman. Astronaut. Rock Star. Actor. Singer. “Writer” was never one of them. The way we were raised, it was just sort of expected that you’d grow up and go to college and find a good-paying job that would support a family and one day let you retire without depending on the government until you died. So that’s what I did. The world of Corporate America pays the bills. It puts food on our table. It keeps a roof over our heads. I’ll likely be just fine financially one day when I retire.
Despite all that, my head has always been up in the clouds. I’ve always been a thinker, a daydreamer. I never went actively looking for writing, just like Dutch and Dillon never dropped into the rain forest looking for the Predator. Oh, but it found them all right. It found them good. Just like writing stalked me through the treetops and jumped down at the last minute and … whoa, okay, easy there, Hoss. That analogy only goes so far, and that’s not at all how it happened.
Aherm, what were we talking about? Right. How writing found me.
Possibly it was more like Smeagol finding the ring of power. No, that’s not it either. It wasn’t my birthday, and I didn’t kill somebody over it. Sheesh. Okay I have it now. It was like Deagol finding the ring of power. Yeah. That’s it. Just sort of being pulled along by life through the muck, and he spots some shiny thing down there, and he reaches out his hand and just sort of makes a grab for it. That’s more or less how it happened. And once I had hold of it — or, more aptly, once it had hold of me — I just couldn’t give it up. The voices, they talk to me in my head now. They argue with me. They makes me cough. Gollum. Gollum.
I came to writing sideways and very late in life. I’ve read interviews with some authors, and when they’re asked some variation of the question, “Why do you write?”, I hear them say things like, I have to write. If I didn’t write, I would die. I’ve been writing since I was a child. I have an MFA in creative writing and it’s what I was born to do. If I didn’t write down all these ideas I’d just go crazy … I have to just kind of shake my head and go, Mm kay. All right. I can’t even relate to those feelings. I have no idea what they’re even talking about. Either write or die? Really? Those are your only options?
Why do I write? Mostly because I just enjoy it. I enjoy the pure escapism of it. I enjoy living inside the imagination of it. I enjoy the challenge of it. I enjoy the problem solving of it. I enjoy the places it takes me and the ideas I get to chase down. It’s hard, and there are lots of times when I get stuck and don’t know what to do. There are days when I have nothing to write about. There are weeks and months when I don’t even feel like writing. But I always come back to it, because there is magic in it for sure. I’m no sorcerer; let’s just be clear about that. But I haven’t blown myself up yet, and that’s something to be thankful for.
Love this peek into the Deagol story! When I read “The Hobbit” and the “Redwall” series in grade school, I started trying to replicate them and fill spiral notebooks with stories of my own. That never really stopped, so I’m sitting pretty in the write-or-die camp. We writers come in all shapes and sizes!
Magic has always surrounded you in various forms.
Abra-ca-freaking-dabra, baby!
Okay, I love your origin story. It’s honest and funny and totally valid. I’ve always been afraid to embrace my writing side because it doesn’t fit the narrative. When I tell people I’m a writer, they assume I’m also a bookworm who devours novels like it’s my job. Not so. I am a SLOW reader, and the books that really grab me are few and far between. Nowadays, I read a lot, but only to improve my writing. And that’s okay. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I could hold a crayon, and that’s what I’m going to do. You take that ring and run with it, Morgan.
When I was 7 I wanted to become an astronaut. So I wrote to NASA. They were very nice. Sent me lots of space photos. But they also told me the requirements – which required US citizenship at the time. Not ever imagining I would qualify therefore, I was devastated. Then Star Wars came out and I realized there was something even better than being an astronaut. And that was going into space where unlike the real world, the force was strong, lasers made noise, no one needed bulky spacesuits, and ships had dogfights. And thus my first highly derivative fiction was born.
Reality is for losers anyway. Good choice!