Last week, I decided I was going to start living my life. I am sick and tired of never appreciating my accomplishments. I never celebrate my little victories by rewarding myself-- I just keep dreaming, thinking someday I'll earn this, have that, be one of those people. Well, I made a straight up decision to say fuck that shit. I'm incredible accomplished and I am tired of being humble, denying myself, and never having fun or being happy with the state of my life.
I am a teacher, so much that it is impossible for me to not be a teacher. Many of you know me as one of those "Did you know" people. I've got random facts coming out of my ass, mouth, ears-- any orifice from which I can spew knowledge (now, that is one hell of a visual), all accrued from college, books, discussions with some astonishing human beings, and years upon years or watching educational television. And, when the country finally realizes the economy won't get better if they keep cutting state funded jobs, like teaching, I'll be a teacher again. It will happen. I don't have the first fucking clue how long that will take, but I know it will happen eventually. I will be a teacher again, if not next year, another year after that. People have to retire eventually, or perhaps die of a heart attack when they comprehend how many years they have to work before they retire-- regardless, jobs will open eventually... But, for right now, I am going to finally work towards a dream that lives in my heart, and is not born out of responsibility and financial need.
I am here and now setting a goal of finally finishing this foresaken book I have been going on and on about for five years, by the end of summer, and self-publishing it as an eBook. And, now that I've typed it, posted it, and you're reading it, I have to do it. The interwebs will hold me accountable. You will hold me accountable. By my twenty-seventh birthday, I want to be able to call myself a published author, and hopefully, be cashing royalties checks.
More than likely, it will suck, and flop, and I will make no cashy-monies. But, if I don't try to do this one thing, I'll regret it for the rest of my life. I'll die having not accomplished the one dream I never realized I wanted until I thought I might never get it. Even more than being a teacher, I am a story teller. I love to write. It's the only other thing in this world that is impossible for me not to be. It just comes out of me, whether I want to do it or not. I used to think I was pretty good at painting pictures, but I never recognized how exceptional I could be at painting with the written word. The more I do it, and share those words, the more I am told that I'm doing a damn fine job at it, and even I am starting to believe it now.
Even as a kid, I was writing stories. No one ever knew about them, but I had notebooks and word documents full of (in hindsight, awful) stories, completely devoid of character development, literary elements, and discernible plot lines (and yet, still better stories than Twilight). It was never anything I thought about pursing-- it was for me, to live the lives and fantasies I would never be able to live. There were very few days in junior high or high school I was not living in my own head, imagining the worlds and people I was inventing. I have always been the victim of an insatiable over-active imagination, and now I understand why-- I am a writer.
When I look back on my old stuff, from both the recent past and my childhoos, I am amazed by how much I have grown as a writer just in the few years I have been actively working on my craft. And, while I feel confident I can create a work worth publishing, I know I still have a long way to go. Knowing that, I will work on building my skills in areas I still need to strengthen (as long as it isn't the technical part of writing-- that is why they invented editors), and rely on the strengths that I know I possess, like description and character dialogue. And, I am going to write my book they way I want, because that is what one of my literary heroes, Neil Gaiman, gave me permission to do, and frankly, I don't feel the need to apologize for that.
I don't care if you don't like my word selection or my genre or my dialogue-- I need to learn to deal with criticism now anyway. I have a story in my head, and I think its a pretty damn good story. The thing is, I am the only one who knows and can tell this story. I'm going to lay myself bare, and write my story. By the Autumnal Equinox, I expect to have a book for sale on Barnes and Noble, even if it kills me. At least then I can die happy. Hell, I already figured out what to put on my tombstone...
