My articles tend to not dive into the positive aspects of the world around me, so this week I thought I would change that. I’d like to talk about something I am grateful for.
Ever since I can remember, I have been transfixed by a good story. My grandfather was a character, and as we both sat in his old leather recliner he used to tell me tales full of all sorts of wonders, mystery, and intrigue. I still remember some of those stories today. He started my love of not only fiction but a well-told story.
Time passed and I assume at some point I learned to read, even though I don’t really remember the process, or my first book. I do remember my mother would listen to me read Tom Sawyer, one chapter at a time, before bed. Years later, I remember falling in love with R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps. I think the year I was in fourth grade and I read every book in the series.
In fifth grade, my school started the Accelerated Reader Program where you got points for reading a book and then taking a comprehension test on the computer in the classroom afterward. Each book was assigned a point value based on reading level and length. After reading things like The Hatchet, Where the Red Fern Grows, and Tuck Everlasting I realized I needed more points for my time, so I read Little Women, Dracula, Call of the Wild, and Moby Dick. It was while reading these novels that I realized I wasn’t doing it for the points anymore. I was doing it because I thoroughly enjoyed the process of working one’s way through a book, no matter the length or reading level.
The following year my Mom handed me The Dark Half by Stephen King, and I never looked back. Along with the books for my class schedule, I’d without fail be carrying a King novel with me as well. Carrie, The Stand, Misery, Salem’s Lot, It, Cujo, Pet Sematary; I was reading everything I could get my hands on. And I loved every second of it. I read The Shining one snowy afternoon in a single four-hour stint. I think I was thirteen at the time. In eighth grade, Desperation and The Regulators headlined my Christmas list. During my first deployment to Iraq, I read all seven of the books in The Dark Tower Series. Still to this day, I “pick up” (download) the newest King book on audible as soon as it’s been released. My love for the style has even extended to Joe Hill and Owen King, Stephen King’s sons, and both great writers themselves.
I tell you about my love for King’s books because I want you to have the full picture.
I want you to understand my obsession and dedication. I’ve read most of Grisham’s, Patterson’s, Koontz’s, and Bachman’s* works as well, among many, many others. To date this year, I’ve already finished eleven books and am working on my twelfth. I’m not trying to brag, but rather, show my love for reading as it has shaped who I am as a human being. Recently, however, I have found that my love for the written word has manifested into something more.
As a kid, I wrote. I wrote a lot. I had a notebook full of short stories with elementary titles such as The Ski Trip Massacre, Lost In the Woods, The Babbling Brook, and my personal favorite, Danny Doesn’t Want to Go to Bed Now. Sometimes I’d turn one in for an English assignment, but more often than not, they lived only on that notebook’s pages, and only for my eyes. I never had the courage to pursue writing.
And then life got in the way; six years in the Army here, a few years in college there, law school, a full-time job sprinkled in, and a wedding amongst other things. And since I didn’t go to school to write, it was put on the back burner. Until the #MeToo movement happened, that was.
When #MeToo swept across social media, I wasn’t content just responding to the idiots criticizing it on Facebook anymore. I had to do something more. I wrote an article, and for the first time, submitted it. Imagine my shock when a few hours later I received an email stating they wanted to publish it.
There was a shift in the balance of the world. Once, solely a consumer of the written word, I was now an aspiring contributor, producing my own words for others. The feeling was surreal.
Whenever I think about how to explain what it’s like to write, an excerpt from the Author’s Note of Allan Weisbecker’s memoir, Can’t You Get Along With Anyone? comes to mind:
First, there’s something I have to get off my chest in this writer’s memoir. If you’ve ever said or even thought the words “I’m going to write a book,” you may eventually do so, write a book. But if you tacked on at the end the word someday, as in “I’m going to write a book someday,” you never will. Trust me on this. I’ve done the research.
Along the same lines: If you’ve ever said or even though the word “I could write a book” – without or without the emphasis on “I” – you never will do so, write a book.
This is just the way it is. It’s annoying when people who’ve never written anything make these statements to people who actually do write. And it happens all the time, at least to me. One time this guy, in finding out I’d written a book he read, said, “I could write three books.” I wanted to pop him then and there.
That writing is difficult is best exemplified by the Gene Fowler quote I use as the opening epigraph: Writing is easy. You just stare at the blank page until your forehead bleeds.
After The Good Men Project published my first article, I posted another piece that I had previously written, straight to Twitter, emboldened by my new found “success.” My editor, the amazing Christa McDermott, saw it and asked if she could have that one, too. At that moment it occurred to me that this could be something I am capable of doing. So I kept going.
Travel forward in time a few months and here I am, a weekly columnist. And I am still just as surprised and delighted every week when that same email comes in:
Dear Dustin,
It’s great to hear from you again! Thank you for sending us “My Name is Earl.”
I’d love to run it on the site…
Now, seventeen published articles later, I have found a new passion. I have reached out to other writers and received positive feedback (thanks, Marty Skovlund Jr. and Peter Maass). I have had inspiring messages from readers telling me I’ve found my calling, and I have found the confidence to continue down this path. And there’s something else I would like to add about writing – it has proven therapeutic for me as well. It’s helped me address my own demons in ways I never thought possible.
At some point along the journey, there was a shift in my attitude about the process. I stopped wondering IF I could write another article or story, and started wondering WHAT I would write about instead. And then something more happened. I started to think differently when I read news, watched TV, or took my dog for a walk. I started to process the incoming stimuli in a new way. I started to think, what if I wrote about that, or that, or that, or that…So I did. I wrote about all of that.
Stephen King said “If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There’s no other way around these two things that I’m aware of, no shortcut.” He is absolutely right.
And who knows, maybe now I’ll even start submitting that backlog of fiction…
So here’s to a lifetime of reading, and a future full of writing, or whatever else your endeavor may be.
And oh yeah, that thing I am thankful for – it’s easy – in the terminology of Stephen King, I am thankful for you, Constant Reader, because without you, there’d be no me.
#WordsThatMatter
Weekly Pursuit of Happiness
This week I focused on the good around me, and because I was looking for the positive, I found it.
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This post is republished on Medium.
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