Those who can’t do and can’t teach

I have always, always, always loved reading. The first book I ever read, starting out reading it with my sister and eventually reading it on my own, were the books of Oz, at three. My family was thick with books, though our tastes varied wildly, and there was no way I wouldn’t fall into the same trap. Though books were one of the few purchases my stingy family indulged in, still I would read quickly enough that I read the same books over and over again, ad infinitum. Even today, at my professional job, in my cubicle, I’m reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix over lunch, and it has to be at least the seventh time I’ve worked through the series.

When I found myself aimless and floundering after a disastrous first semester in college, my then-girlfriend-and-now-wife suggested that I needed to find a purpose in life – a plan. She had always dreamed of journalism, and in the same vein, had made her own newsletters as a child to distribute among family. In looking at my life, it was clear that my two driving passions, gaming and reading, came to the same thing – I’ve always considered video games an unrecognized but legitimate new narrative style, just a new way of telling old stories. So I set out to become a writer.

Sadly, it probably won't surprise you that it's way easier to find an image for "dragon and girl" than for "sleeping at dinner".

The problem was, I had only written very limited short stories before – my longest 17 pages long, and focusing on a farmgirl who could, inexplicably, swordfight, and had found a baby dragon that let her teleport when she said its name. And it’s name was Phelindrya. Even now I want to punch myself in the stomach. Luckily, I understood the awfulness of my prose at the time and hid this disaster from everyone, but still, it was an inauspicious start.

I continued with short stories and threw myself into creative writing classes, drawing on the muses of my childhood, when, by all accounts, I had been extremely creative and driven. I began to research magazines and journals that would accept unsolicited work, and submitted two stories to the NDSU journal. I received positive feedback and guidance from professors I respected.

What made me give up that dream, and happily, was reading what I wrote. I could absorb myself in the process and come out on the other side with something I couldn’t stand to wade through. And I didn’t see much improvement over time. If I couldn’t write something that I myself would enjoy, how could I ever succeed? My creative fire seemed to have burned down pretty low since childhood.

Unlike programming, my neglected white whale, it was easy to turn my back on writing. I loved reading, and will always continue to do so. But I’ll leave the material to people who deserve to produce it.

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