My Literary Journey

My story may not be worthy of a best selling memoir, but I'm sure everyone is dying to know just who I am and what I'm all about. So, for all of you passing by this site, let me explain where I got the nerve to claim myself as an aspiring author.

It all started when I was but a lad, 15 years of age, budding student of my charter school in Phoenix, Arizona. In my particular school, many students were re-starting from drop out status which meant, there were a lot of students 18 years of age or older. One of those students, we'll call Kelly to protect her identity, was a particularly beautiful girl. She was 18 and worked in a position as an exotic dancer at nights while she attended school during the day to try to finish her education. At that time, she was my biology partner and boy I couldn't be happier. She was the apple of my eye, the frosting to my cake, the.... ok, you get the drift. I had a huge crush on the girl. She happened to be part of a poetry group, that met every so often. One of the boys in that group approached her with a poem that he had "written for her." _________ fill in the blank with my disgust. She was flattered and, though this particular boy was nowhere near as handsome as I was (biased opinion allowed since I am writing this blog) she became somewhat involved with him in the flirty manner that made me sick.

Here's where it begins...

I approached a good friend of mine and exclaimed angrily "That's so stupid. Poetry is ridiculous... Anyone can write, here I'll show you." My friend humored me and as I took him to a computer I thought of something to transcribe. It took all of 30 seconds for me to kick out a small poem. ( Sadly, I cannot remember what that poem was) My friend proceeded to read the poem out loud and when he was done, he told me with a serious tone, "That's actually really good man!" I re-read it, turned my head to the side like a parakeet being asked a question, re-read it again and realized it wasn't half bad after all.

Of course, you can imagine what any hormone filled boy does, with the knowledge that he can write poetry. I immediately began to write something for Kelly. The next day I asked to join this poetry group and proudly handed her the poem I had worked so hard on. She took it, read it, smiled and hugged me with thanks. She told me that she loved it and that she planned on putting it up on her wall.

"OH GLORIOUS HEAVEN, THERE IS A GOD!"

I was floating on a cloud. Unfortunately she, being much older than me, didn't have desire to invest her romantic efforts into me. I eventually moved on, graduated at the ripe age of 16 and proceeded to attend a local community college in hopes of getting a degree in software programming. While going to school, I took the typical English classes required for every degree. Those classes re enforced my desire to write, but weren't enough to push me into a career of writing; after all, I was a computer guy and back then the computer industry was exp loading with potential.

During the years to follow, I spent most of my literary effort on personal poetry, but eventually turned to blogging on politics and world views, then went on to blog for the Christian community.

Eventually, after a hard few years of a broken marriage, I divorced and found I had a lot of spare time on my hands after the split. One fine day, I was sitting in my apartment with my roommate watching anime and I had a fleeting idea for a book. I thought long and hard about this book and found myself developing plot. Little by little, the book came alive in my mind and the characters started to surface and even take on personalities. I realized that I was sitting on a potential dream that had taken a back burner to married life. The dream to become published. I had always desired to write something, but never found much hope for poetry. Beyond impressing a girl or two, the poetry thing just didn't have a lot of potential.

Part 2 coming soon...