My Time as a Writer

Hello again. I've had a somewhat busy week consisting of editing, reading, editing, and reading. Fun fun.

Anyway, thinking over this blog I realized that in order to avoid any long explanations before each individual blog entry I need to share my history as a writer. It shouldn't take very long, though it will encompass a little over 10 years in time. I just feel it's necessary to do this so that everyone who reads has some idea of where I'm coming from.

My love of writing emerged around a time of great loneliness in my life. I was 12 years old, and I had just moved away from a town I really loved in Virginia. It was actually when I moved back to South Carolina (the first of...at least 5 moves within the state). As a result of my loneliness I began to closely cling to one of the few constants in my life, namely comics. Specifically, X-men comics. It was around this time that I received an assignment to write a fictional story for one of my classes, and I based this story largely around what I'd been reading in X-men at the time (for any other readers, this was right around the time of Gambit's Trial). Yes, it was a hack job, but not completely. There was original stuff in it, and it was pretty good. I'd always written stuff that was good, and I'd always enjoyed doing it. It was after I got the highest grade in the class on that paper (unusual for the C, D, and occasional F student I was at the time) that I realized I wanted to be a writer.

Early on I was a hack and nothing else. That's okay though. I believe once any writer unlocks the potential of their imagination it is nearly impossible for it to be original. Mine certainly wasn't. I wrote X-men fan fiction. Lots and lots of bad X-men fan fiction. My imagination had no restraints at the time, and any idea I thought of made its way onto paper. In addition, my grammar was bad, the pacing was off, I didn't do good characterization, plots made little sense...need I go on? It was valuable though because I continually got better. From month to month I would realize the inferiority of my previous writing, and make many improvements. I stuck with fan fiction, but it started to get better.

Most of the fiction I wrote for many years continued to be fan fiction. I just wasn't interested in writing original stuff for a while. My nonfiction, however, was original, and usually good. Well researched stuff. Partially encouraged me to major in History along with English when I went to college. It was there when I sought these two majors along with a Creative Writing minor that I did finally begin to write original stuff. It was short stories for a while. Not many of them. I continued with the fan fiction because I liked writing stuff that was just for fun.

Around a year ago everything changed. I got the idea for the book I'm currently editing. An idea that I knew was the best idea I'd ever had. An idea that took a lot of research, a lot of work, a lot of planning, and a lot of writing. I did it though. It took me until September of this year to finish the book. I then edited it once after leaving it alone for a couple of weeks. I then left it alone for about two months to allow myself to forget stuff, and began editing it once more this week. This edit is the longest and most complex edit. I printed it out, and I am reading it out loud to myself. This forces me to take my time and to pay attention. It also helps me to catch mistakes.

So that's where I am now. I still write nonfiction (Like this entry you see before you). I have written a fiction novel and am currently editing it. I also still write fan fiction. This may seem like the strangest thing, but I believe it's important. If I actually make writing a career then I'll be writing because it's my job. Writing fan fiction ensures that there is always something out there I am writing just for fun. Something that there is no way I can ever consider publishing because it's illegal for me to get paid for it. It's fun, and I enjoy it. That's the main motivation.

The stuff I still write can be found at an imprint called Marvel 2079 on the website Avengers 2000. Shouldn't be too hard to find. Interesting 26 issue series I wrote there called Morbius that spans almost my entire writing career. The first 10 issues or so I wrote when I was young, and I honestly was still missing a lot of the fundamentals (grammar problems are a consistent problem). The next issues show my considerable improvement over the years. I also consider Morbius #12 to be one of the best things I've ever written.

And that's my history. Consider it my resume if you will. How I try to prove to you, the reader, that I perhaps do have some useful things to share with you. I hope you think so.