Write to Liberate Yourself

Ray Bradbury said it best: ''You're curious, aren't you?'' All writers are curious. I definitely am. As a kid, there were two worlds, or at least it seemed to me. There was the world my dad lived in and the world everyone else lived in. My dad told me as a teen, one Christmas Eve, ''give the horror shit a rest, it's Christmas Eve.'' Christmas and Halloween are my two favorite holidays.

The movie was Halloween 4 and I was in my brother's room, he was in my room, playing the Ps2. I'm curious why it mattered. I was not bothering anyone. The Halloween movies were creative fuel for my own writing. They made me feel relaxed and powerful. I'm thirty-five years old now and I probably started feeling like it was okay to be myself, to love what I love.

I have won honorable mention in the L Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Contest, had a short script turned into a movie and put up on Youtube called, All The Lonely Boys, appeared in every edition of the Demonic Visions book series. All these things come from following my passion. My dad was seven years old when his dad walked out on him and his family. He was the middle child of seven kids.

He didn't achieve his dream as a football player and wanted to vicariously live through his kids. I never fell in line and was so off the beaten path that he never understood me. That's his cross to bear, not mine.

I always loved the Goosebumps books and television shows. Still watch them as an adult. It is cool that Millennials have really embraced loving their childhood toys, books, games, movies as adults. I feel like older generations felt like they had to put their childhood loves away and could never go back to them and that has built up some resentment in some people, consciously or subconsciously.

It is an amazing time to love what you love and be who you want to be. Writing is an accumulative effort, too. You really only fail if you stop writing. People will criticize your work and tear it to shreds. It may take you years of writing dreck before you write something worth reading. Keep going.

Writing can give us the chance to actors, philosophers, anything we want to be. The real world is so limited. You can only be so attractive, so smart, so whatever, but in a story I can be a super bowl contender quarterback or an old Chinese woman that flew into the states for her daughter's wedding.

I call the shots and I'm in control. Writing allows me to open my mind but also to know my limits. I'm not comfortable writing about politics, so I stay away from writing about them. But just because I'm a republican doesn't mean I can't have a Democrat for a protagonist.

It is all acting, and it is all because writers and human beings in general are curious. We want to know why. Also, the world can be full of bullshit. It is filled with small talk and hiding our true selves. Fuck that. I want to get up in the guts and poke around, emotionally. I want to discuss big ideas and things that matter.

I don't think there are enough really good slasher flicks or monster or ghost stories, I have the power to write them. Writing is fun and it can be powerful. Writing is liberating because it gives somebody a voice. It does not care either who the author is. If your work is good, people will read it, as it should be.

Bring everything you have to writing. Love the grind and the process. Be proud of your stories and be open to criticism. Only let criticism make you better, don't let it hinder creativity. You know yourself. You know your strengths and weaknesses. You can always improve. Let being a writer drive you, motivate you, not the love of telling others, ''you're a writer.

Love what you do and remember why you write. You want to be a free and you have a great story to tell.