Writing
I became interested in reading, writing and words at a very early age. I used to dream of a day when I'd have the patience and skill to write my own novels. I was constantly writing in my journals and churning out short stories, including a trilogy of "Narnia"-inspired fantasy novels when I was 13. I wrote my first official novel the summer after I graduated college. I followed that with dozens of short stories, a Harry Potter-esque fantasy novel and an 800 page epic melodrama about the small town I grew up in.
Unfortunately, I found the world of writers and publishers to be a very unpleasant one at that. With the rise of the internet and the fall of interest in writers and writing by the general public, I decided to abandon my goal to get published. However, along the way I managed to get some of my work out there, including these three pieces I'm quite proud of:
Open Hands
I wrote this near the end of my era of submitting my work, for a Random House story contest, in a fit of cynicism. Disgruntled by the works I saw getting published that were pretentious and artsy, I set out to write something deliberately obtuse, to the point of being ridiculous. I cobbled it from pieces of various things I'd written with no thought whatsoever towards continuity or a "point." However, the results ended up being charmingly surreal and appealed to the person taking submissions. I didn't place in the contest but he asked if he could post it anyway. It is still posted under Boldtype on RandomHouse.com.
Read Open Hands
There Are Mountains
I took several months off one year and had time to spare. A man had sent out an ad to the animation union that he was looking for writers and artists to contribute to a local newspaper he was starting. I submitted this essay based on the theme he requested and he was very pleased with it, and paid me pretty well. I had to go back to work so we lost touch, but I enjoyed my brief hour as a "news journalist."
