My Writing History

In the Beginning…
I guess my writing journey started when I was just a kid in elementary school. I wasn’t a recreational writer by any means. I absolutely hated having to write book reports (which stemmed from my still ever-present great dislike of forced reading). However, when it came time for a creative writing assignment in school, I was much more into it. I enjoyed creating a story out of nowhere, even if its premise was rather simple or outlandish. I tended to lean on older movies and television shows that were always on in my house for inspiration. This played into my stories having either a comedic or mystery type of feel to them. Throughout all levels of grade school, I had some kind of creative writing work. Without exception, I would flourish with those assignments.

I was never a huge fan of English class, especially in middle and high school. Elementary school English work was building the basics like diagramming sentences, identifying different parts of speech and the like. I didn’t mind that type of stuff so much, and I think I’ve retained a lot of what I learned from way back then. I’m not privy to what is taught in grade school now, but I somehow think the words “subject” and “predicate” are not heard much during English lessons (but I could be wrong).

Nonetheless, once I was finished with high school, my writing days, specifically creative writing, were all but over. I enlisted in the Air Force right out of school and forwent college altogether. I didn’t have any meaningful writing work to my name, of any kind, until I was at my three-year mark in the Air Force at my first duty station in Alaska.

We’re Not in Grade School Anymore, Toto
The type of writing I was doing, at that point, was a bit more technical in nature. I was tasked as a trainer for the fellow airmen on my shift who were of the same career field. Part of that job was to write entries into those airmen’s training records, detailing what was covered, and how they performed. I needed to ensure what I was saying made sense, and was legible, so it was a slow and painful process for me. Unless I really took my time, my penmanship would suffer, plus hand-writing really slowed me down as compared to typing.

The writing of training entries continued up until I left for my next duty station in Maryland in late 1999. Once there, I was relieved of any type of writing until I was promoted to Staff Sergeant. Once again, I was thrust into the role of not only a trainer, but also a supervisor. I had the same training duties as I had in Alaska, but now I also needed to write Enlisted Performance Reports (EPRs) on an annual basis for each of the airmen assigned to me.

By the time of my promotion, I had gotten quite good at the training record entries. However, when it came to EPRs, it was a totally different ballgame. These reports were not looking for drawn out descriptions of things. They required bullet-type statements with a very distinct formatting. Complete sentences were out the window with these reports. Only short phrases were required, and the goal was to have the least amount of blank space in each section as possible.

It was at this point that my best friend became a thesaurus. Because I had multiple airmen for whom I had to write EPRs, all of which had the same job, I could not use the same action words and phrases for each of their reports. I needed to vary things enough so as not to make it appear as though I was plagiarizing my own work constantly. The simple reality was that every supervisor kept a copy of all of their past EPRs to use as reference in writing future ones, so some repetitiveness was going to occur (it just couldn’t be TOO obvious). I quickly learned what would or would not work and I became quite good at writing EPRs, even though I hated them. My crowning achievement with an EPR was when I submitted my top airman’s evaluation and it didn’t come back with requests for corrections. That is a nearly unheard of occurrence.

As time went on in my new office, I continued down the path of more technical writing. I began writing up instruction manuals detailing all of the processes for the many different workstations we had under our charge in a given shift. Why these types of manuals were not already around I could not say. Regardless, management was thrilled I took the initiative to do this work. The reality was there was A LOT of down time in our office and I was just straight up bored, so I created work for myself by writing these manuals. I guess this could be considered my first foray into recreational writing, although writing an instruction manual isn’t what I would call recreation 😛.

Throughout the rest of my Air Force career I endured much of the same. I was still writing EPRs all of the time, even writing my own since my supervisor was a civilian and he wanted no part of trying to write an EPR. Let me be perfectly clear that I did not over-exaggerate my own worth for the simple fact that I could. I was honest with what I presented in those EPRs and my supervisor was quick to rebuke anything I wrote that he didn’t feel was accurate.

EPRs, Oh How I Miss You So...NOT!!!
Once I was finished with the Air Force in November 2005, I entered the private sector and made my way into IT work. It goes without saying that I did not have a ton of writing on my plate at work. I wound up writing more manuals for things again, but that was the bulk of it. I continued along this path for well over seven years without much diverging. Well, that’s not entirely true. I began to dabble in very basic website development to create an in-house reference page for the rest of my fellow hardware technicians. That isn’t “writing”, to me, so much as programming...another thing that is not my cup of tea.

Upon reaching the end of that long stretch of non-writing, my wife, Lisa, and I moved from Maryland to Florida in the fall of 2012, where I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) a few months after we moved, changing my life forever. I permanently left work as prolonged stress was my main trigger for a relapse (something I learned the hard way). Since I had plenty of time on my hands, that is when I decided to try and get into woodworking.

Along the way during my woodworking trek, in September 2019, I decided that I wanted to share my passion for woodworking while living with MS, and I started an Instagram account. While Instagram is mainly a platform for displaying pictures, I could do a bit of writing for each post. I tried to give as brief an explanation as possible for what I was presenting, but it simply wasn’t enough. After a while, I grew tired of trying to squeeze my thoughts into as few characters as possible.

In December 2020, I decided to start my own website/blog. This allowed me to go into as much detail as I desired on anything I wanted. I started writing articles for ALL of my past woodworking projects, successful or not, dating back to when we lived in Maryland. I was invigorated by this newfound freedom of writing. When I’m at a keyboard I’m able to get my thoughts out so much more quickly and clearly than I ever could with a pencil and paper. I found myself going on and on, perhaps too much for some readers. I simply didn’t care. The writing was for ME. It was what I wanted to do, and I was enjoying every minute of it.

Once I’d finished all of my project articles, I wanted to focus on some things that were a bit more personal. I didn’t want my website to just be about my woodworking, such as it was. I wanted to open up more about my life with MS. I wanted to, perhaps, be an inspiration to others who shared the burden of this chronic disease. I was not giving up on my life because of my diagnosis, and I wanted others to see that they could follow their dreams as well.

I finally decided to do a deep dive into my life before and after MS entered it. I wasn’t shy about anything. I needed to be up front with how I was feeling both before, during, and after my eventual diagnosis. I couldn’t sugarcoat the bad times. Nearly everyone who gets a life-altering diagnosis like MS is going to hit a rough patch. I wanted to share what I went through to show it’s possible to accept MS and continue on with life.

I loved writing about my past. I had to lean on Lisa for some of the details because I was getting some of the timeline mixed up, but I got through it. It wasn’t as difficult to remember and write about my struggles as I thought it might be. I wrote an extremely lengthy backstory on myself, and after reading it many times, I wouldn’t change a thing about it.

The “Ah-Ha” Moment
Not long after I started my website, I was going through some of my old browser bookmarks and stumbled onto one of my friend Jenny’s old blogs. One specific post was detailing her time with our late mutual friend, Malaika. I loved what she wrote, and the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea of writing about my short time with Malaika for everyone to read.

I figured I could write the story and then publish it on International Friendship Day (IFD). As it was February, and IFD wasn’t until the end of July, this would give me plenty of time to write the story. Little did I know that this future story would forever change my writing journey.

Writing that story was very difficult. Having to remember some of the best and worst things in my life was a lot for me to handle. I had forgotten about or stowed so many of the bad times so far in the back of my mind that the feelings that surfaced made me realize how much I truly missed my friend. I never thought that writing, about anything, could make me feel that way. As a result, I broke down emotionally and I remained in a funk for a few months, up until I finally published the story.

After finishing Malaika’s story, I got a serious urge to write more. I started on another story, the subject about which I will not divulge here, and got some 60-plus pages in before I finally bogged down. After reading it a number of times it just felt stale. I’ve since scrapped that rendition of the story and plan to restart it from scratch in the future.

I wasn’t mad at that long story’s failure. I’ve got a lot to learn about writing. In the meanwhile, I began to write something else that I absolutely abhorred in school...poetry. I think poetry was such a great outlet for me to express my feelings on a number of topics. It was so wonderful to get my thoughts out for others to read, all the while clearing my mind of its clutter.

Since I had so much material building up, I decided to redesign my website and add a section specifically for all of my writing projects. It’s been great to publish all of my poetry. Very few are visiting my site for my writing, but that’s fine with me. As I stated earlier, all of this writing is for me and my mental well-being.

I’ve only been seriously at this whole writing thing for around 10 months or so (as of August 2021), but I have enjoyed it so much more than I ever imagined. I’ve got such a differing portfolio of material on my website now. My woodworking articles remind me of the old training manuals I used to write, albeit with a bit more of my brand of humor injected. I certainly don’t shy away from pointing out the many mistakes I’ve made during the course of a project.

While my creative writing is still very much in its infancy, I’m nonetheless proud of what I’ve written and published thus far. Perhaps one day in the near future I’ll write a short story like I used to do for school oh so many years ago. Now that I’m well into my 40s, I’ve got so much more life experience than I ever did in grade school. I think that is one of the main reasons I’ve taken to poetry now. I never could write it or interpret it as a kid, mostly due to having nothing about which to write. Now that I’ve got so much more to draw from, the possibilities are endless. Wherever the current leg of my writing journey takes me, I will continue to publish my works for all to see. One day, perhaps, I will have a story that is worthy of being sent to a real publisher. What writer does not have that dream?

I have to thank a very special friend for all of the help and support they’ve provided thus far. That person knows who they are and how appreciative I am of their guidance. They have requested to remain anonymous at this time, so I will proudly honor their wishes. To my friend I say, again, thank you. I know I’ve said it to you many times, but I don’t know if I’d be at this stage of my writing journey without you.