Write Now

The one drawback of novel-writing is that, even though I can write fast and confidently, there still lay those swaths of time where I leave my audience completely in the dark. Communication is something I always understood the importance of, yet have neglected it in my most cherished endeavor. Even if I were a famous author, writing from a high tower doesn’t have the appeal I once dreamed it did.

So maybe it’s good that I’m not a celebrity just yet.

I’m just a 30 year-old boy. I can’t disappear to write my next book and expect what few followers I gathered to still be there when I emerge from my cave. Not in 2019. In 2019, writing novels is not enough. Good. Because that comes easy to me. And I didn’t come into this world for easy. And I still have everything to prove.

So I’m going to start a blog. And I’m going to get good at it. Eventually.

This will be as much a relief to my psyche as it will be to those gracious enough to stick with me. Even as I sit at work and draft this little intro of a blog, I’m excited. The more I think about it, the more excited I become at the prospect of having an open stream of communication with the world.

I work in a hospital. As you can imagine, I see a lot of interesting things here. Sometimes you’ll turn around a corner and an image will smack you in the face with how interesting it is. Sometimes the drama trickles in only when you really think about it; these are often the most haunting memories you’ll take from a hospital. The things you don’t see, the things you almost see. Sometimes a patient will be reasonable one hour and insane the next; Sometimes you’ll wonder which half was the actual insanity, and which was the truth.

One thing I notice all the time, one thing that keeps coming back to me, is the juxtaposition of success and suffering. A man can spend a night crying in his wife’s arms as he finds new ways to nurse a lifetime of depression, when just down the hall some young residences are flirting with one another, talking with excitement about where their careers are going to begin.

Don’t get me wrong. You’re not reading the cathartic inception to my new and improved Communist Manifesto. Even if I were interested in such an engagement, it’s not the job I’ve chosen. It’s not the job of a storyteller. I’m not complaining about the things I see. I’m not even stating them as a problem. I’m just seeing them and telling you.

Of course, these observations will manifest in sometimes unrecognizable ways throughout my stories. A man crying on his hospital bed might be a wise mage toiling in a world where magic is abused. A doctor too busy to say hello might be a king too busy to notice the rising darkness along the shores of his nation.

That’s my job. Not complaining.

Even my own feelings, good and bad. I try to spin them into these same objective observations, and possibly make a show out of them. I have my share of regrets and bitter memories. I have my frustrations and my shames. I have my dark thoughts. Many of these have ascended to my proudest moments as a writer.

And that could be one of the best parts of being a novelist: no matter what life throws at you, you don’t have to fear it; just make sure you catch it.