I am Thankful

I'm thankful I'm a writer because I don't know what I'd be doing if I wasn't.

I'm twenty-four, hell nearly twenty-five years old, and I can't even be sure that writing is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. Maybe I can make a career of this, or maybe it will be something that I think of in the future and smile at the memory. I can't tell you which way it will go because life is the one story we don't get to edit or revise, no matter how much we'd like to.

What I can tell you is that, in the short time I've been pursuing writing as a profession, just under a year and a half, I've been more aware of the world around me. I started my first serious project when I had one foot out of the door of my active duty enlistment, which I was glad was ending because it was nothing like I'd thought it would be. Is anything ever what we expect it to be, though? When I started Robert Michals: The Demon In The Trees I had high hopes of being a great talent that gets discovered through independent publishing. One that people all over the world will enjoy reading and while I still have those high hopes of people enjoying the material I create, I have an infinite amount of respect for the process that I didn't have when I started my first draft.

In less than a month I'll be putting my final product of my debut novel out into the world for everyone to see, and I'll be waiting with bated breath to see if people love it as much as I love creating the world for them. And no matter which way it goes I will have the last sixteen months or so to reflect on. In the beginning, I was naïve and thought that every day would be waking up at no one, hair a mess and grabbing my first cup of coffee while I sit at my keyboard to crank out ten thousand words or so in my next big hit. I learned very quickly just how wrong I was. I still woke up at noon like I thought I would, and my hair was more of a mess than I thought it would be. But it's because I didn't get to sleep until about six that morning and I cranked out about sixteen hundred or so words versus the ten thousand I thought I would.

It was fucking amazing.

I was learning and evolving as my story grew into what would eventually grow even more than I would think it could be at that point. Hell, what was going to be a standalone novel is now outlined for seven books total, and I still think there's room for growth. It's thrilling and terrifying at the same time. I've put a lot of myself into just this one project and have dozens more coming in fast from the horizon. Bring'em on. I might not be ready for them, but I sure as hell will be. And even if I'm not, I'll figure it out as I go along, just as I have so far.

I've met some of the best people in my life up to this point in the most recent months. We don't even have to say a lot to each other, but we understand what we're all going through at any part of the process. The frustration of not knowing how to move to the next scene, or forgetting that PERFECT piece of dialog for that one part of chapter six. It's enough to drive someone insane, and most of us probably are. But we fucking love it.

Things get dark, in both the literal and figurative sense. We stay up for just one extra hour to get some work done, that turns into us squinting as the sun rises. Or we sit for hours staring at the blinking cursor trying to bring ourselves to move on. Or perhaps we procrastinate and do the laundry or the dishes... or maybe our taxes depending on the time of year. Then maybe we realize that we haven't eaten a proper dinner in the last three days, need a shower, a haircut, and a new computer chair because the one we've spent the last month in has ALREADY worn thin from overuse. Or maybe we have a moment of doubt. That moment will turn into a day, then a week, or even longer. We think "Holy hell, how did I convince myself I can do this? I'm the worst writer in the world. IN. THE. WORLD!"

But it's not true. We are some seriously dedicated and rugged creatives. We take a dream we've had, a conversation we 'accidentally' eavesdropped in, or some other minute part of day to day life and turn it into something completely unexpected and extraordinary. We build worlds in our heads and dictate the lives of innumerable beings we create in our heads in a way that is unlike anything else I've ever experienced.

Up until now, I have been a student, albeit an unmotivated one in high-school and prior. I've been a military IT handling sensitive network information, a much more ambitious student in college, a BookTuber who has had the pleasure of meeting people from all over this little blue marble that are exactly like me and completely different at the same time, and I have been a writer. It's hard for me to put into words exactly what that means to me so I know I may have gotten a bit "rambly" at one point or another, but I know without a doubt that this has been by far the highlight of my life.

I just recently started a new semester at school; and on the first day of each class, my Professors have all asked the students to talk a bit about ourselves. I've had the distinct privilege to tell my peers, "I'm a writer." And I damned proud, and more importantly, I am thankful I am a writer.