Kyle Garret's Blog, page 29

The Waiting Game

"I am a patient boy, I wait I wait I wait I wait..."-Fugazi, Waiting Room
I am sure that this comes as a surprise to no one, but I'm not famous.   I'm not even well known.  My life long misanthropic tendencies have probably made it so that fewer people actually know me than, say, the average person in America. In other words, the number of people who are going to hear my name and become interested in whatever it is I'm doing is going to be pretty low.

My grandfather isn't famous, either -- not yet, at least.  This was my biggest problem when shopping "Pray" around.  Publishers and agents didn't want to invest in a book by an unknown writer about an unknown person, because that combination equals no sales.

All of this means that I have to build a reputation from the ground up, and the only way to do that is by word of mouth.  I need word of mouth and positive reviews in hopes that the audience for "Pray" grows.  And so far I feel like I'm moving in that direction.  But it's going to take time...a lot of time.

It's going to take time for those who have my book to read it, and for those who care enough after having read it to review it.  It's going to take time for people two, three, four degrees of separation away from me to discover the book, and then even more time for the aforementioned reading and reviewing.  Getting the book to professional reviewers doesn't help much, either, as they have piles and piles of books to read.

Perhaps more frustrating is the fact that this throws a wrench in going out and promoting the book, other than doing it online.  Book stores agree to have you make an appearance if they think you can bring people into the store, and right now the only people willing to go into a store for me are those who already know me, and I've tapped that well dry.

Even if doing appearances was an option, I'd still find myself in the position of trying to sell complete strangers on a book they know nothing about.  Granted, I can be pretty personable from time to time, but it's going to take more than that.

I need that one good review to come in, that one person to discover "Pray" who can spread that message far and wide.

In the meantime, I have to wait, and hope that slow and steady pays off.

A nerd by any other name

When I was growing up, I was a dork.

Through the 80's and into the 90's, if someone wanted to insult me, their go to label was "dork."  I played Dungeons & Dragons in study hall, my bookshelves were lined with books with the words "Dragonlance" or "Forgotten Realms" on them, and every week I rode my bike (and later drove) to the comic book store for my weekly haul.

I am, by no means, denying the label.  I even embraced it.  I was proud to be a part of that subculture.

But then, in the late 90's and into the 2000's, I became a geek.

I'm not sure when, exactly, this happened.  In some ways, I suppose it was society's attempt at preparing for the upcoming X-Men movie (2000), which ushered in geek chic.  But I remember being called a geek even before X-Men came out.  Perhaps the pop culture consciousness of the moment saw what was coming and decided that "dork" was a term that the mainstream wouldn't like.  "Geek" seemed a bit more acceptable, and "geek chic" rolled off the tongue and could be used to describe almost anything.

So I became a geek when I was once a dork, even though I hadn't changed anything about myself.

"Geek" seemed to have staying power.  "Geek" seemed like it would be the go to term for everything remotely fantastical.  People began attaching the word to web sites and avatars in an effort to distill their essence down to one word.

Bu then, a few years ago, something strange happened: I became a nerd.

Again, I'm not really sure when, exactly, this took place, but as the sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero genres continued assailing pop culture, society once again decided that the prevailing term for someone who enjoyed these things wasn't user friendly enough.  The aforementioned social consciousness looked at anyone who had formally been called a "geek" and noticed that many of them were really smart, and many of those smart people worked on computers.  So if "geeks" were smart, and smart people were called "nerds," then we could just make a neat little swap.

I don't mind being called a nerd.  It does have a better sound than dork or geek, and isn't also a term for male genitalia or a guy who bites the heads off chickens.  No, the only thing I find weird about it is the fact that I'm really not all that smart.  I might be slightly above average, but that's only because I read a lot.  And I have little to no computer skills.  For a guy who grew up calling actual, certified geniuses "nerds," being called one myself seems dishonest.

But "nerd" is easy for people.  It's non-threatening.  It's even comforting, in some respects.  And it's amorphous, so it can be applied to almost anything.  If you're obsessed with rocks, for example, you could be a "rock nerd."  As the subculture has expanded into the mainstream, the mainstream has adapted how it describes us so that it doesn't feel like it's letting the riffraff in.

I can't help but wonder what's next.  What will I be called ten years from now?  What happens when the nerd revolution sputters and dies?  If the process is reversed, then perhaps I'll downgraded to geek, before being dropped back to dork.

And I still won't have changed.

This has all happened before.

I drink when I write.

That's an exaggeration.  I don't always drink when I write.  If I drank every time I wrote I'd either have the world's only indestructible liver or I wouldn't be here to type this.  It is entirely possible, if not entirely necessary, for me to write sober.

But there are times when a drink really helps.

Part of this comes from the fact that I have the attention span of a Cocker Spaniel, and alcohol tends to let me focus on one thing at a time.  There's also the fact that alcohol breaks down inhibitions and, in my case, breaks down my defenses.  If I need to get to a place that's raw, a place that's exposed, I'm not going to do it willingly.  A few drinks grease the hinges of that door.

But, again, these aren't regular issues.  I'm not always writing something that makes me cry.  And when I have large chunks of time, I can manage to get a decent amount of writing down even if I am distracted by whatever shiny thing catches my eye.

There is a moment in my writing when I will always have a drink: when I start something new.

I've come to realize that the translation from my head to the pixelated screen is sometimes difficult.  I can roll around in an idea in my head, but as soon as I'm typing it and watching the letters form words form sentences on the monitor in front of me, the feeling of submersion begins to fade.  It's changed from a liquid to a solid and its properties are different.

But I need to find that feeling again to keep writing.  I need to be able to submerge myself again.

Alcohol is how I make that happen.

I have a writing habit -- I have a lot, actually -- where I always finish a session of writing at the beginning of a new section.  It might be a paragraph, it might only be a single sentence, but I always start a new section before I knock off for the night.

I do this because it gives me an automatic starting point when I start up again.  I leave myself a door back into that world.

This is all to say that I have had a few drinks at this point in the blog.  I actually started this blog a few hours ago, as a way of warming up to writing.  It's actually a decent trick and one I suggest to anyone writing -- warm up with something like a blog or a journal.  It gets the writing juices flowing without the added strain of having to be overwhelmingly creative.  You can just write about yourself.

I have had a few drinks (whiskey, my drink of choice, this evening being Jack Daniels) because tonight I started a new...something.  I'm leaning towards book, but I'm not entirely positive that's what it will be.  I'm probably just hoping it will be a book, because the only alternative I can think of is a novella, and we all know that novellas are the kiss of death (and, sadly, kind of my preferred format).

Anyway, the new thing is really not like anything I've ever written before, so a little liquid courage was necessary for me to begin to translate my brain pictures into an actual story.

Besides, starting a new book is terrifying.  I know what I want it to be, but I'm not entirely sure how to make that happen.  I am small in the face of my own great expectations.

But aren't we all?

Incognito

Kyle Garret isn't my real name.  Not really.  My name is Kyle, yes, and Garret is my middle name, although it's spelled Gerrit (you can thank the Dutch for that).  But my actual last name is no where to be seen.

This has been a point of contention among some in my family, particularly as my work has become more available.  When I had a small Q&A session at the library in my home town recently, someone specifically asked me why I have a pen name.

My wife, Nicole, chimed in with the obvious answer, that really only applies to "I Pray Hardest When I'm Being Shot At" -- the book is non-fiction, and the story centers on my family, so using my real name might come back to haunt me in some way.  As Nicole pointed out, people can find pretty much anything on the internet these days.  They could probably find my real name, too, but why make it any easier than it already is?

My answer was split into two parts.  There's the simple answer, which is that my real last name is a mouthful, with two hands worth of letters that are easy to mispronounce.  I joked that I someday hope to publish a book that has my name in big letters on the front, and my real last name is too long for that.

Then there's the hard answer.  In a nutshell, I like having a distinction between my writing life and my non-writing life.  It would be insane to say that the two don't inform each other, or aren't nearly identical.  But it's essential for me, when I sit down to write, that I'm able to remove myself from my own life.

That might seem kind of strange for a man who just published a book of non-fiction and whose fiction is largely based on things that have actually happened to and around him.  All the things in my life since the day I was born until right this very second influence my writing.  But no matter how much of that might make it into my writing, I still need to be able to step away from it, to look at it as a writer, not as the person living that life.

There's a saying out there somewhere about how each day brings you new life lessons or some such new age sounding wisdom.  I don't think that's true.  I don't deny that most people probably change, at least in small ways, over time.  But I don't think those changes happen automatically or even on a regular basis.  I know the person that I am will evolve over the course of my life, but I don't know how quickly.

On the other hand, I think every single time I sit down to write, I evolve as a writer.  It might not be in bold, perceivable ways, but I know it happens.  It's not unlike going to the gym, really, in that exercising my writing muscles only serves to make them stronger.

There's also a certain level of pride of ownership when it comes to my writing life.  It is mine in a way that nothing else is.  My friends, my family, my wife -- they might influence my work, but at its core it's something that I create and that I alone create.  There are people in my non-writing life who gave birth to me, raised me, befriended me, taught me, and guided me.  I'm the sum of my life.  But in my writing life, I'm the driving force.  I'm paramount.

Wow, I drifted into pretentiousness there. 

Now I just need to decide if I need different pen names for different genres...

Home is where the heart is (and where they buy your books)

A few weeks ago, I returned to my home town of Kent, Ohio.  I moved away from Kent, initially, when I left for college almost 17 years ago (wow), but left for "good" when I moved to Atlanta in 2000.  I go back once or twice a year.

My entire family lives in Kent, more or less, and I still have very good friends there.  So when the release date was set for "Pray," it was clear that I needed to have a book release party in my home town.

Since this was going to be fairly early in my life as a self-promoter, I decided to step outside my comfort zone, and set up not just a book signing at the book store in Kent (Last Exit Books), but also a reading at the library.  That was putting myself out there an awful lot, but I figured if I couldn't do it in a town where I knew a lot of people, then I probably couldn't do it at all.

The start of the book release party.So on Saturday, June 11th, I arrived at Last Exit with a few boxes of books in tow.  The local paper had run a feature on me that morning, so word had gotten around.  Coincidentally, there happened to be an event going on downtown, which is where the store is located, so we probably got better foot traffic than normal.

The signing only last two hours, but there was a strange kind of ebb and flow to it.  I would say that the first half an hour and the last half an hour were not unlike a ghost town, while the hour in the middle was just a constant stream of people -- most of whom I hadn't seen in probably over a decade.

Nicole and I got so caught up in things that we actually forgot to take any pictures, something of a theme for our trip.  She managed to take a few here and there, but we never got a good shot when things were really busy -- so you'll have to take my word for the adoring throngs!

That night was the release party, again in downtown, but this time in a bar, because that's how I roll.  This was for close friends and family, mostly, and went on long into the night, and into the early hours of the next morning.  While I'd been pretty focused on the signing earlier in the day, this was the first time I was able to really spend time with those closest to me to talk about the fact that I had a freaking book published!  Honestly, just typing that is still surreal.

Thankfully, I had Sunday to recover before the reading at the library on Monday.  The reading...well, the reading didn't end up being much of a reading, to be honest.  Only a few people showed up, so instead of standing at the front of a room and reading to them, we formed a circle of chairs and I took questions.  It was actually an interesting experience, which hopefully prepares me to do it again some day.  I really hadn't expected many people to show up -- after the previous events, I didn't think there was anyone left who hadn't already been to see me!  Regardless of the turn out, it was a good experience.

Anyway, it was a good trip and a nice way to start this new part of the "Pray" journey.  We'll see how it goes from here...

(Cross posted to Iprayhardest.com)

Carnival Barker

Over the span of 10 days, I had two book release parties, a signing, and a reading.  They all went very well.  Nearly all were well attended and I sold a good number of books.

They were also kind of terrifying.

It was an adjustment to be the focus of attention.  This might sound strange to some people who know me, but I'm generally pretty scared of doing things in front of people I don't know.  The fact that I'm out there trying to convince them to buy something that I put a lot of myself into makes this even worse.  There's a certain amount of trying to gain acceptance that comes into play.  Couple that with a certain necessary amount of salesmanship, and you have something out of a nightmare.

Which isn't to say that I didn't enjoy those signings.  That's actually not the issue, really: I had a great time.  But it was hard at times.  It took a while for me to become free and easy, and a few times I never even managed to get to that point.

It's an interesting dichotomy, really, and one I would imagine most writers deal with.  I know that I can be incredibly self-absorbed, to the point where I can spend large chunks of time thinking about nothing other than myself.  In my defense, I also spend large chunks of time putting parts of myself into what I write, and I'm almost always thinking about writing.

At the same time, we don't like being forced into public situations.  I had a great time at my wedding, but the ceremony terrified me, not because I was scared to get married, but because I didn't want to stand in front of a group of people and share something I considered to be very personal.  The same goes for my writing.  Even if it's fiction, I still consider my work as a part of me, so throwing it out there for the world to judge is frightening.

But we don't operate in a vacuum.  People need to buy my book if I'm to be able to keep writing, or at least keep writing instead of going to a day job every day.  And I think I'm slowly getting better at talking about my book in a way that's at least somewhat engaging.  It was probably smart for me to have my first few signings in towns where I have a lot of family and friends; these were like dress rehearsals.

It also helped that there were drinks involved.

At some point this summer, though, I'll step into the world of real, honest to god, no safety net, no one knows me from Adam signings.  I'll be sitting at a table in any book store that will have me as complete strangers walk past me, trying to avoid eye contact so they don't feel bad about ignoring me.  And I will try to strike up a conversation with whoever will listen, most likely sans liquid courage.  It's going to take a lot out of me.

But this is what being a writer is these days, when there are so many of us and an audience made up of fewer and fewer people who all generally read the same thing.  This is what happens when most publishing houses are run by a bare bones staff because the money just isn't coming in anymore.  This is what you have to do to get your work out there, and get it read.

So that's what I'll do.

And I'll probably be terrified while I do it.

Booked

The other day, Nicole and I were talking about how we're not particularly materialistic people.  I mean, don't get me wrong, we like to have things as much as the next person, but it's never really been our sole focus.  I would guess that part of that is due to the fact that I don't buy any Apple products, so my inherent male need for gadgets is relatively stifled.

But there was a caveat to our discussion, which I put this way "except for my book problem."

I love owning books.  I have stacks of books that I haven't even read, yet I'm always buying more.  Even worse, I have no genre boundaries; I will buy anything if I think it's good.  The amount of money I could have saved in my life time by simply going to the library is so large that I try not think about it for fear of driving myself to drink (more).  Our book shelves are bursting at the corners.

I have, however, recently taken the plunge and bought my first eReader, the Barnes and Noble Nook Color.  I've actually had my eye on it since it was released, mostly because it's in color.  I looked at it as being entertainment on the go: plays music, plays video, stores books.  Later, they upgraded it to include Android apps, which meant now it has its own e-mail app, as well as applications to do a wide variety of things (like play Angry Birds).

And I love it.  I love reading on it, which has been something of a shock to me.  I wouldn't have gotten it if I thought reading on it was going to be a problem, but I never thought I would enjoy it this much.  Not only is it easy to read, the pages seem somehow...well, more digestible, I guess is the way to put it.  Each page seems to be formatted into neat little bites, and before you know it you've read dozens of them.  And I never thought I'd say this, but not being able to visualize all the pages I still need to read is pretty great.  It can make getting through a book less daunting.

I find myself buying books on the Nook that would I consider to be expendable.  They're not books that I feel so strongly about that I need to own physical copies -- because those still exist.  As great as the Nook is, there are still certain books that need to be held in my hands.

This is kind of funny, though, given that physical copies are easily more expendable, because they can be destroyed.  Sure, a digital version can be destroyed, but there are back-ups, back-ups which are usually free to re-download.  You could go so far as to suggest that the most important books are the ones you should have digitally, but I would say that they're also the ones you need to own physical copies of, particularly if you can find nice, high quality copies (or if you own a beaten up paperback you bought with your allowance twenty years ago).

I should really own both.

I think this whole "owning both" philosophy is also the only way book stores are going to survive.

Yes, I love book stores.  I love everything about them.  I love the people that get paid very little to do a taxing job just for the joy of being around books and people who love books.  I love that no two independent book stores are the same.  I even like chain stores, if only because they're spreading the gospel of the written word (and corporate profits, but that's another blog entry entirely).

Book stores are not going to survive in the future as just book stores.  I don't think anyone can really refute that.  They're going to have to sell things other than books.  Expand in whatever you direction you want, from pop culture to education to whatever.  But a book store that just sells words on a printed page are going to die out soon, with only a few exceptions.

Those exceptions will survive on the collectors' market.  Cheap paperbacks will be the first format to die off during the eBook revolution, because the prices are the same and paperbacks are disposable.  Hardcovers are going to be harder to kill off.  The number of books I own in hardcover that I originally bought as paperbacks is insane.  But I wanted high end copies that will last a long time...and that look nice.  Say what you want, but the secondary benefit of books is that they're great for decorating.  A bookshelf packed with fantastic hardcover books is better than the fanciest furniture.

But if book stores are going to move into the collectors' market, they need to follow in the footsteps of records.  The local music store has a large selection of vinyl, records released in that format for people who collect them.  Those records also come with a code that allows the buyer to go online and buy digital copies of the songs on the record.  The buyer gets the best of both worlds: portable versions they can take anywhere, and a great collectible that with invariable have sentimental value down the line, as well.

Granted, this could be harder for books, at least in their current form.  Records are sealed in plastic, so you actually have to buy the record to get the code.  That seems like something books could work around, though, particularly if it only applies to hardcovers.

I hate the fact that book stores are dying, and it doesn't make me feel any better that I'm playing a small part in that.  And that's why I'm hoping they'll start to evolve so they don't go the way of the malt shop.

Hurry Up and Wait

I have found that I'm becoming more and more impatient. 

Understandably, the release of "Pray" has become nearly all I think about.  If I go an entire day without doing something to promote it, I feel as if I've failed.  I want people to buy it and I want them to read it and I want them to review it and I want them to get others to buy it.  I want these things to happen and I want them to happen right away.

But they can't.  Not really.

Books -- particularly those by an unknown author -- take time to reach an audience.  This isn't a movie or a TV show or a song or a web site.  This is 200+ pages of words.  Even those who already have a copy might not get to read it for weeks.  There is going to be a period of time where I'm just hanging out while people read.

Books are made or broken by word of mouth.  How often do you see a TV commercial for a book?  They're pretty rare.  Magazine and newspaper ads are far more common, but those cost money, more money than a mid-size publisher and a first time author have available.  But the internet is (relatively) free.  Conversations are still priceless.  Letters (both electronic and physical) are never more than the cost of postage or a chunk of internet time.

But these things all take time.

The problem, for me, is that I've waited so long to get to this point, that I don't want to stop moving forward.  I don't want this partial fulfillment of my ultimate goal to be all there is.  I want to -- I need to -- turn this success into another and another and another.  There is a way these things work, though, and that way requires time and patience and I have difficulty with both of those things.

I also find myself having strange debates with myself.  For example, I have two other books that are relatively ready to be seen by an agent or publisher.  I'm currently writing query letters for them.  The fact that I've managed to get a book published will help me a great deal.  Being able to say that it's on its second (or even third) printing would help even more.

Again, I find myself anxious to move forward, but having to slow down.  "Pray" has been out for two weeks; I've sold maybe 30% of the initial run.  It's entirely possible that I could get to a second printing, but that could be months down the line.  It might be in my best interest to hold on to those queries letters until then.  It's certainly in my best interests to hold on to them until more people at least know about the book.  And so I have to wait.  Again.

At some point after someone realized they could make money from books, someone declared that writing a book was the easy part; it was selling it that was hard.  On one level, I disagree; selling is easier because it doesn't take as long.  At a certain point, the movement is there or it isn't.  The push either works or it doesn't.  Writing a book is never that clear.

So I here I am, riding the wave, hoping it takes my far enough that I can keep the momentum going.  Here I am, waiting, hoping that every person who reads my book will do me the kindness of spreading the word.

I'm not a patient boy, but I'm trying.

Welcome!

Hello!  Welcome to KyleGarret.com.  I'm your host, Kyle Garret, and this is my little corner of the internet.

As you might know, I'm a writer.  My first book, "I Pray Hardest When I'm Being Shot At," is available now from Hellgate Press and fine bookstores everywhere.  If you're curious about how the book came about or want to read some behind-the-scene anecdotes, please check out the "I Pray Hardest" web site.  I'll be heading out in promotion of "Pray" soon, so expect some travel logs and pictures to go up soon, too.

I also published a collection of short stories entitled "Unrequited and Other Stories."  You can find the handy Amazon link for that over on the right side of your screen.

My short fiction has appeared in a few places, but online you can find it at the Ginosko Literary Journal and Children, Churches, & Daddies. There's a handy link to the left for some print versions.

I'm something of a pop culture enthusiast, or at least a nerd culture enthusiast.  I write reviews for Comics Bulletin.  I tend to rant about the comic book industry a lot, but I've moved all of those blog entries to their own little corner of the internet.  I'm also supposed to be blogging for Pop Matters at some point, when I find the time.

Aside from "Pray," I've written two other books that are currently looking for homes.  One is an as of yet untitled YA book.  The other is my first novel, "Through Sheer Strength of Will (and Blissful Ignorance)."  I'll probably mention both of those a lot over the next few months.

So there you go, my writing life in a nutshell.  Feel free to stop by on a regular basis -- I hope to keep you entertained!  And you can always find me on Twitter.

And someday I'll be a REAL boy!

I had a very writerly day yesterday, which is only odd in that a) I don't really have days like that and b) it did not involve any actual writing.

I have a day job, but I've managed to whittle down my hours so that I only have to go into the office three days a week, those days being Tuesday-Thursday.  This gives me an extra long weekend to do,well, things related to writing.  And I actually have enough of those things to fill that long weekend, which is nice.

But yesterday was an office day, so not exactly the type of day that would scream "feeling like a writer."

It started off when I received a few e-mails from people who had read my book.  Some of them are related to me, so their praise was taken with a grain of salt.  But one was from someone who did not share any part of my family tree, and the review she sent was absolutely glowing.  She managed to hit on all the things I really worried about with my book and made me feel like I actually accomplished what I set out to do.

Not long after that, I confirmed a book signing in my hometown.  I have to think that's a milestone for pretty much any writer.

Later, I came across the latest column from writer Jason Aaron over at Comic Book Resources.  He mentioned how the hardest part of writing was coming up with the ideas, while the actual sitting down and typing things up was much easier:

"The actual act of putting pen to paper is the fun part. It's all the mental gymnastics you have to go through to get to that point that's the real work."
Since I follow Mr. Aaron's Twitter, I sent him a little message, saying that perhaps that relationship is different depending upon the format you're working in.  I can see how the act of putting pen to paper for a comic book script would be a blast, because the big beats are already in your head.  It doesn't matter what your panel description is, because only a handful of people are ever going to read it (assuming it's not so bad that your artist can't figure it out).


Prose, I suggested, is a different thing all together.  I labor over every single sentence to the point of inaction.  Ideas are easy for me.  I have too many of them, quite honestly.  If I could spend half as much time writing as I do thinking about writing I'd have written dozens of books by now.


I had a moment, then, after sending my Tweets, after making a comment to a writer about writing, when I got a little giddy.  My comments came from my own experience as a writer, and now I had an actual book to point to as an example.  I think I used some variation of "when I wrote my first book..."  Because I did.  I wrote a book (I've written a few).  And next week it's being published.


I felt like a writer.


Later that day, I would have another moment involving my writing.  It wasn't necessarily a positive moment, but it was a telling one.  Without going into specifics, it involved making decisions about my future based upon my need to be able to write.  It came up again this morning and the word "sacrifice" was thrown out.


I have never defined myself as a writer.  In fact, I spent years keeping that information to myself.  In college, it was impossible to hide, but after I graduated I don't think I really told anyone.  I would be hard pressed to think of anyone in Los Angeles who knew I was a writer unless they dated me, and even then I only let them know so much.


I've never really thought about the sacrifices I've made to do this.


There are the obvious things, of course, like my complete lack of anything resembling a career, somewhat troubling given my advanced age.  It would be easy to point to the carpal tunnel syndrome in both of my wrists as the physical manifestation of how writing has done me wrong, but I would suggest that my overall fragility has the same root cause.  You can only spend so much time indoors before you turn into the Bubble Boy.


I would go so far as to say that I've sacrificed more than one relationship to the alter of writing.


The list could go on for a while, particularly if I start talking about my various personality quirks, mental eccentricities, emotional extremes, or social difficulties.  Granted, these...issues...probably existed before I let writing pull me under, but I'm sure they were exacerbated by it.


I kind of find myself in a position where I am defined by my writing, just as I'm realizing that everyone I know has labeled me as such for quite some time.  And I'm not complaining -- honestly, it still freaks me out to even use that word in connection with my name.  In a lot of ways, I feel like I still haven't earned it (contrary to yesterday's experiences).


But I've suddenly realized how it's shaped my entire life, and how it still does.  And, yes, any decisions about my future will be influenced by my writing.  I don't have a choice; it's what I do and who I am.


Admitting that is weird, like I'm an alcoholic giving myself over to a higher power.


I suppose that's just about right.