The most common question I hear when my coworkers or friends learn that I’ve written a couple of books is this: Why?
The answer is quite simple: Why Not? Since I was 14, I’ve been inventing stories in my head to help me fall asleep. Every once in a while, one of those stories does just the opposite and keeps me awake at night, in the world, inventing what’s just around the corner. My first attempt to write down those stories (because they turned to dreams, which got forgotten too quickly) was when I was 21 years old. Eric’s story is that one (originally named Samuel). In later years, driving four hours to work and back each week left me a lot of time to narrate stories as well, to the unobtrusive dashcam that was always present. Those were deleted each trip, unfortunately.
It was only with the Covid lockdown, when I myself had to go into quarantine, that I finally found the time to start writing.
But that doesn’t answer the question of “Why?” That’s even simpler. I started something at fourteen that never got finished. My sons are both creators (one a builder, one an artist, both amazing) and start many projects yet finish few. Writing books from the story’s inception to publishing, and then marketing thereafter, is a brutal journey. My boys are too young to be pushed in a direction that they may not want to go, as they’re in their “try everything” phase, so why not lead by example? Show them how brutal it is, how the ups and downs of creation work. One day you’re so pumped and “ready to publish” and the next you’re “I’m just going to throw it all away and start anew.” That’s just the process. And, 100% analogous to life itself. I will push through, and I will succeed. By doing so, I’ll teach my boys persistence. And believing in themselves. That’s why.
If in the end, I’ve got five self-published books, two hardback copies of each, sitting on my shelf with handwritten notes to my boys, then I will have succeeded. And, taught a valuable life lesson in the process.
Of course, I hope that you’ll like my books as well. That would be true success.
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