I was 12 years old when my parents gave me my first typewriter. I didn’t get my first usable computer until a few years later so this was what I had to jot down all my story ideas on after years of filling dozens of notebooks with sloppy illegible handwriting. It was a game changer for me. Of course it took me several decades before I would finish my first book. This is the story how it came about, what it took to get there and everything that inspired or motivated me to keep going.
My first attempt at a novel was a fantasy book I mostly drew inspiration from D&D, Zelda and Final Fantasy video games. I got somewhere around 12 or so chapters in over the course of completing high school and starting my adult life. Needless to say I never finished it.
My second novel I worked on began life as a 16-bit video game based on SNES games like Mega Man X, MechWarrior and Smash TV. I never got more than maybe the first three chapters finished before I took it in a different direction. Instead of finishing the novel, long after giving up on trying to make a video game, I turned it into a comic book I wrote, illustrated and colored myself for my art class project. That was the end of that story. After that I tried to make a couple more comic books before giving up. I had focused all my efforts on honing my writing skills. As such my artistic “talent” was non existent.
After high school I started several dozen novels with various themes, ideas, genres and concepts that never got more than a few chapters before giving up. By the time I was 28 years old I had kinda given up on the idea I would ever finish a novel. Then something changed that took my entire life in a brand new direction. I got enrolled in college at the University of Nebraska. There I studied journalism and theater. While in college I wrote dozens of short stories for various writing classes. I was finally inspired to not only sit down and write with a purpose, I was actually finishing things I started. This really inspired me to finally get determined to really push myself to finish my first novel.
I decided a grand sci fi epic space story was too dense, a fantasy RPG inspired grand adventure was too complicated and a personal story that explored my experiences as a human always turned into a loose autobiography with some alterations for whatever reason. This time I wanted to do something simple. A crime thriller horror novel about a man who goes from a down on his luck family man to an obsessed serial killer.
I wrote the outline, plot summary and brief character descriptions when I was still in college. The story, plot and characters were all loosely inspired by a multi episode story arc in the crime drama Bones, the thriller Fargo, a scene in one of the Friday the 13th films and some random ideas I adapted from other stories I never finished.
The four years I was in college I would write little by little on weekends and afterschool when I wasn’t playing video games. Unfortunately school got complicated and I ended dropping out for reasons I don’t care to share here. However I took what I hard learned in school and applied it to getting a job in the news industry. I got a job working at a TV station. This was a dead end so I moved to Texas and went to work as a staff writer and news reporter for a local newspaper. It was here that I finally realized I could do it. If my writing was good enough to land me a profession, paid, fulltime job literally as a writer then I knew my writing was good enough to finish that book.
More determined than ever I would push myself to write after work and on weekends for the next couple of years. One thing that kept motivating me was reminding myself how many famous authors all started out working in newspapers. I figured I was finally on the right path so it had to work out.
I started writing the first pages of what would become my first novel in 2011. I didn’t finish it until 2023. Why did it take me so long? Well I was working full time in the highly competitive and extremely fast paced breaking news industry. While I was honing my skills at the same time earning accolades for my writing I was also going through some personal turmoil. Then COVID happened. I found myself unemployed with loads of free time. One day I was watching the horror movie The Ring. I remembered how much I enjoyed working as a newspaper writer but also how close I was to finally finishing my book.
From 2021 until December 2023 I pushed myself to finish it. Once I finished the first draft I went through and did my first round of editing and proof reading. After a month of that I submitted it for publication with Amazon Kindle using their self publishing tools. I was accepted and finally after it was approved for printing I got a physical copy of a book I had written in my hands.
Looking back on it I wish I could tell you it was easy. It was not. I wish I could say all you need is a good idea and a plan, maybe but as I didn’t have those things what do I know? What I can tell you is that I never gave up until it was finished. The crazy thing is it took me over ten years from start to finish to write then publish my first novel. That was in December 2023. It is now September 2026 and I have already written, finished and published two more books and am about 60 percent done with my latest one. I have read stories from countless published authors who all say finishing that first novel was the hardest. After that everything clicked and it became second nature. I believe that. Not only did finishing that first book prove that I could do it, it taught me all the tricks I needed to speed up the process going forward.
Here is the advice I will give any aspiring writer who is becoming discouraged by the long processes. Just stick with it. Even if you can only write 500 words a week do that. It might take you 10 years, it might take longer but after you finish that first book you will feel so incredible nothing will stop you from there.
Obviously my advice is not that original. But it is true. The worst thing you can do is get frustrated and impatient. Let the story take as long as it needs to come out of you. Don’t rush the creative process. While I know I would never go back to working in the newspaper industry again I now know that I can say I am a published writer on multiple fronts. I know that I will keep writing as long as I have things to say. Could I give you some motivations tips on how to “speed up” the process? Probably, but it wouldn’t be good advice. All I can say is no matter what your dreams are never give up on them. The doors to your dream job won’t open if you don’t knock on them first.
