The Beginning

Buried among cuff links, coins, and receipts on my nightstand is one tiny slip of paper I received inside a fortune cookie three years ago. I rarely open fortune cookies, and put about as much faith in them as I do the e-mails I receive from the progeny of Nigerian royalty, asking me to help free up their inheritance. However, I found the simplistic text of this particular fortune to be poignant and I continue to keep close by my side.

It reads, “You are a lover of words, someday you should write a book.“

As a 9-year old child, I wanted my own newspaper route. From watching television and the movies, it seemed like the perfect job for a boy my age. Unfortunately, I lived in a small town without a daily newspaper, so the prospects of getting a paper route were not great. Armed with my parents’ Brother typewriter, I decided to start my own newspaper, The Neighborhood News, for the sole purpose of creating a paper route, but soon discovered an affinity for the written word. For a dime an issue, the dozen folks in my neighborhood could find out where their neighbors had gone on vacation or which summer camps the neighborhood kids were attending. They could even check the box scores and standings of their favorite baseball team or read a movie review of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Big, or Twins.

The Neighborhood News lasted three summers, but the experience sparked my fascination with writing.

In high school, I worked for a couple of different publications covering high school sports, a career I would revisit later in college. A couple of weeks ago, I shared how as a college sophomore I started an underground newspaper and as senior in college I worked for a website covering high school football, but writing was always more of an avocation than a vocation for me, and like most English majors, I wrote poetry and even wrestled with penning a novel on the side.

Like most college students, I failed to finish my first attempt at a novel, although I did manage to spit out seven chapters and approximately 200 pages of narrative. I still feel as though I have stories (plural) to tell and that I am capable of producing at least one work of contemporary fiction before I turn 40, hopefully much sooner. For the past few years, I’ve kicked around a few ideas, even returned to retool my college novel on occasion, but never made any real progress on developing themes or putting word to paper (screen).

It’s time to begin again–new idea, new characters, new focus, but the same overall desire, to explore my love of the written word.