A new year

The tree just outside our studio apartment

Good morning on the last morning of 2015. I’m writing this year’s final blog entry from the second-story studio apartment my wife, Tritia, and I booked through Air B&B. We’re in Carmel, California. It’s almost 8 a.m. and the sun is filtering in through the windows along the top of the vaulted ceilings, casting lacey patterns of light and shadow through the twisting branches of the large, tangled tree outside, itself like a picture from a fantasy novel. It’s Tritia’s and my habit to get away like this every New Year. After Thanksgiving and Christmas, we like to get away from our daily lives and all the parties and get-togethers, and take some time for ourselves. Our New Year’s trips have taken us along the California coast, from Carlsbad in the south to Morro Bay, San Simeon, and now Carmel in the north. We wake in the cool mornings, sip coffee on a balcony, and talk about the year behind us and the year ahead.

The year behind me saw my own renaissance…a rebirth of my creative spirit. We all have a creative spirit, and sometimes it sits dormant for years or even decades. Early in 2015, I started writing again, though not as often as I should have. It wasn’t until after the middle point of summer that I realized I needed to shift my creative focus from literary fiction to science fiction and fantasy. I still write literary fiction, of course, but I was blocking an important part of myself by focusing on it so intensely. I was avoiding my scifi/fantasy creative instincts because I thought they were childish…because when I first started writing as a young teenager, it was scifi/fantasy stories, and surely I’ve grown up since then and I should be doing something “more important” now, right?

It took me a bit to see how stifling I was being to myself.

Our greatest passions tend to assert themselves when we’re in our early teens. This is when we have enough capability, intelligence, and (limited) experience to form opinions about the world, as well as when we develop strong preferences…for a particular type of art, sport, school subject, and so forth. We begin to express ourselves according to those preferences…

My original writing involved stories set in worlds familiar to me. I wrote stories featuring characters from the Super Nintendo games StarFox and F-Zero. My first piece of novel-length (40,000 words) was set in the universe of The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest…and of course, Johnny’s new best friend was a young man named Chris. (Note: Don’t worry, copyright owners…I never shared these stories and they’re long gone by now.)

After a short while, I started writing my own original work. Among many pieces, the one that has stood the test of time—at least in terms of its importance to me—is the story featuring young Kevin, who discovers that he is the next in a long line of family members whose destiny is to defend Humanity’s right to continue existing. I wrote the first “book” when I was 15, intending to produce a series from it. I didn’t continue that work until earlier this year. I edited and rewrote Upholder as needed and self-published it a few months ago. Then, I did what my soul really needed… I continued the story, as my teenage self always intended, and wrote a completely new sequel. Time to unstopper my childish creativity, because childish creativity is the pure source of everything beautiful that’s ever been created. Sure, it’s often forged in the mastery that comes only with the maturity of our adult years, but the stuff we pour—the liquid silver that we then mold into beautiful art—is always born of childish creativity.

As 2015 closes, I’m glad that I gave myself permission to pursue that which I had convinced myself was a child’s unworthy fancy. Indeed, it was the most worthy pursuit I could have engaged in.

With 2016’s potential bursting forth in tomorrow’s sunrise, I have a few commitments I’d like to make, which I’ve already begun to certain extents.

• Continue to write a new blog post every Thursday.

• Write and publish the final three books in my Tradition series.

• Write a new short story every week in January and February.

• Submit stories for publication often. (I have a few in the queue; you might be reading my work in magazines soon!)

• Write my first novel intended for traditional publication. (Yep, I have an idea…)

Well, that’s enough of me. Thanks…as always…for taking the time to read what I’ve written. Tritia has been waiting patiently for me to write this blog entry, and now that it’s done, it’s time to take my wife out to breakfast.

If you have a minute, let me know what some of your goals are for the new year. I wish you the best in their pursuit and achievement. Happy New Year to you and yours!