One of the first things I ever read was a Superman comic book. I remember turning the pages and looking up to find that the afternoon had slipped away without my noticing. I was hooked. The way the art and the words worked together pulled me into another world, and I have never stopped reading since.
From comics, I graduated to novels. One of the first was Old Yeller by Fred Gipson. The bond between that boy and his dog came right off the page and into my heart. It was a simple story, yet in my young mind it was a masterpiece.
Soon I was reaching for more: Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, the tale of an English sailor marooned on an island for nearly three decades, and Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, where epic history and personal tragedy weave together. Somewhere along the way, I realized these authors had touched me with their gift and made my life better. Book after book shaped the way I think and lit a fire in me for life itself.
Then I realized I wanted to write. And like so many things I’ve wanted to do, I put it off, convinced I could never get it right. I tried short stories and saw a spark of talent, but I still wasn’t satisfied. One day I asked myself why I kept putting myself through this torture. The answer was simple: I have something to say, and I carry stories in my heart that I want to share.
In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius gives this advice: “This above all: to thine own self be true, / And it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man.” Those words spoke to me. They told me I must be true to my calling. If I write to satisfy myself first, then I can reach others and perhaps help them too. That is why I began writing, and as long as there is a story in my heart and my imagination, I will keep writing.
