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The moment I knew I was meant to be a writer. 200th Blog!

Things were kind of rough growing up. One of the reasons for this is I had to move so many times during the first 6 years of my academic career. In kindergarten alone, I went to two different schools. Looking back, I understand why things happened the way they did. Mom was a single parent raising two boys and struggling to pay rent, so we had to adapt a nomadic lifestyle.

I couldn't make any friends growing up, because I was never given the chance to learn how. This meant I spent a lot of my formative years in total isolation with only my action figures for companions. I know it sounds like a pretty pathetic childhood, but it yielded some positive results.

First, it was during these years when I fell in love with the written word. I learned to read from my brother's Hooked On Phonics when he quit in frustration and never stopped. Nothing in my life has ever compared to the first time I entered the school library in Kindergarten. From that point on, it became my sanctuary no matter what school I attended. I would gorge myself on the books within, spending hours developing my imagination. My first favorite book series was "Hank the Cowdog" but I quickly dove into material far beyond my age level.

Second, I had to put all of my efforts into my schoolwork in order to keep up with the constantly changing learning environments. Since I didn't have the distractions of friends or a social life, I excelled in my studies. This was the only thing I took pride in, besides my action figures.

Then in September of fifth grade, life with my mom got pretty rough and I moved in with my dad. The first couple of weeks in class at my new school I was a ghost. I'd learned to blend in, rarely making an impression on anyone. (I still remember every one I made, too) I've never been athletic and I failed to impress the other kids in the school yard with my high school reading level.

That all changed in November of the same year.

The teacher, who hadn't learned my name yet, told us to write a story about a turkey for Thanksgiving. She also gave us a paper one to decorate as well. I've always loved comic books and they served as my inspiration. I told the story of Tom Turkey, who dressed up in a Batman Halloween costume and busted out of his farm right before Thanksgiving. I even worked in the theme song from the '60s series. I decorated my turkey in full costume, holding a batarang. It was glorious.

I turned it in and without giving it a single thought. I simply wrote a story I wanted to read. A classmate of mine was a writer for the school newspaper and read it by recommendation of our teacher. To my elation, the next issue featured my story. For that one day, and the first time of my life, everyone knew I existed. After that my celebrity status faded when this couple held hands for the first time, but I never forgot the feeling.

The next time I picked up a pen and took it seriously was in my senior year. This was the second hardest year of my life, with so many twists and mindfucks it took several more years to recover. I was really big into Emo Punk at the time and they inspired me to start writing songs. Some were over four pages long and are painful to revisit, but I filled a spiral with them. After six months of practice I wrote "A Time of Innocence", which mourned the loss of the person I could never be again. It's also one of my all time favorite pieces I have written.

I started showing it to my peers and they loved it, often wanting to see more. That's when I knew I was meant to be a writer. 15 years later, I'm still connecting to people by writing things I would like to read. I honestly can't think of anything better.

P.S. I recently found out my dad still has the school newspaper featuring the adventure of BatTurkey. If anyone's interested, let me know and I'll put it up.

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