When I spend time encouraging others to achieve their dreams, I can’t help but think of achieving my own. The dreamer is always focused on achieving their dreams and I am no different. Most of my experiences that I write about have come from pursuing my own dreams. I want to be an author, I want to have others read and enjoy the stories that I tell. So lets spend a bit of time talking about that. Writing.
There is something about words. I may not have a formal education as a writer but I’ve never let that stop me. I seem to have always been drawn to words and the stories they can tell. As a child I loved having books and tales read to me. As I grew reading became a refuge and a cherished past time. I loved being ushered into another world totally foreign to my own. But it was not enough. Eventually I began to tell stories of my own. I used a variety of mediums, sketching, painting, sculpting to tell stories. Soon I came to realize that words were the best way to communicate my vision to others. I remember writing poetry and songs in high school. I’ve written several dramatic readings for church and a score of unfinished plays and scripts in college. Eventually my stories grew into the short stories and three book manuscripts that I written to date, with more on the way.
There is something freeing about words, there are no rules about who can and can’t write. You don’t need a degree, you don’t need a certification to write a story. If you have an opinion you don’t need to seek anyone’s approval first. If you have a voice no one can stop you from writing it down. The power of words can be wielded by anyone with the desire and the will. There is nothing stopping you, all you need is a little bit of imagination and a pen and some paper. That is how things started with me. Sketching soon turned to writing, short blurbs grew longer and longer with each new project. Now I write until I can sketch my characters then I turn back to writing their stories.
When I was younger I didn’t want to be a writer, it was to big for me. Instead I wanted to move into another story telling medium, I wanted to direct movies. I soon realized that the spectacle that I wanted to create was best left in the hands of others. I want to tell stories unhindered by budgets and reality and time. Words are the best tools I have to share my imaginations. Not only are they free to use, they allow me to try literally anything I can dream up and construct. My ideas are often to big to be placed anywhere else except on the blank page in front of me. When I can’t paint or draw the stories in my head I do what I have seemingly always done, I turn to words.