From the age of 10, when I discovered the Hardy Boys Mysteries, I was hooked on reading. I wondered if someday I could write books like that–stories filled with adventure, danger, mystery, and intrigue—where the good guys win and the bad guys lose, in a climatic, unforgettable bang.
I made a stab at writing when I was younger, but I stopped because I didn’t think my writing was good enough. In hindsight, maybe it was good enough, but I was young and insecure, and it wasn’t good enough for me. So I tucked my desire to write into my bucket list of “things to do someday.”
The years slipped into decades as I journeyed from teenager to young adult, then middle age, and now, to my senior years. Through those years, I gained a more mature, nuanced perspective on life, with all its ups and downs, victories and failures, laughter and tears, joy and pain. With more years behind me than ahead, I am acutely aware that life really is as short as my elders told me way back then.
After many years of saying I would write a book someday, last year, I finally got serious about it. I dug up my old bucket list and looked at the things I wanted to do the most. Writing was near the top of that list. I’m not getting younger; the clock is ticking in a relentless, unstoppable march of time. Excuse the cliche—“it’s now or never.”
I have a lifetime of experience to pull story ideas from, but it’s not all so black and white. At times, life has been a crazy, jumbled mess; at others, a mundane daily slog. I suspect it’s the same for most people.
To get up to speed, I enrolled in a couple of writing courses, read books, watched videos, and established a daily writing habit. I can’t be a writer if I only think about writing; A writer must write—the good, not so good, and downright ugly.
I’ve written many short stories, and co-written a novel. I think it’s mostly good—or “fair to middling” as they say—but of course, my opinion is biased. But when I compare my first writing attempts to my most recent, I see a definite improvement. Maybe there’s hope for me as a writer after all.
I’m not writing for awards, riches or fame. I’m not writing to prove my existential worth. I’m writing to share my unique perspectives on the common human experience we all share. My view of the human experience, while limited and imperfect, is my view, and that cannot be denied.
Just as a reader turns a new chapter in a novel, anticipating what’s to come, so too, I have turned a new chapter in the novel of my life. A novel unfinished, being written every day. And like the Hardy Boys books I loved as a kid, I hope my novel ends not with a whimper, but a climactic, unforgettable bang.
