Closing the door!

When I was in my twenties, I’d go to sleep around 7:00a.m. and wake up around 3:30p.m. This was a habitual routine for me, but it wasn’t because I was playing video games. It was because the world fell asleep and I could finally get some quiet. It was a distractionless space that allowed me to get lost in projects and postulate, problem solve and create. That routine eventually led me to believe that I’m a inherent night owl, and knowing that my grandma, in her late 50’s would usually go to sleep around 1:30a.m., and my mom, in her early 40’s, even later, around 3:00a.m., that this was just part of my genetic make up.

That routine eventually led me to poor decisions in life, feeling that if it was inevitable that I was a night owl, I may as well work a graveyard shift. I worked in a psychiatric hospital outside of Philadelphia for seven years, and they were, by far, the most costly years of my life. I typically slept 1 - 3 hours a day, and that isn’t an exaggeration, sadly. I lost years of my life expectancy during that period of my life, I’m sure of it. In hindsight, although I doubt I’ll ever be an early riser that starts my day before the sun comes up, I think what ultimately drew me to late nights was the ability to create, uninterrupted, at peace, with myself.

I have a deep admiration for writers. Honestly, kind of a vicarious jealously. I know there’s “…no money in it.”, but it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. That’s one of the reasons I covet the writers here on Steemit, like @tarazkp and @ericvancewalton. @ezzy’s also been turning out some great short fiction, and of course, @drwatson’s graphic novels. I have countless stories, many fully developed, in my head just dying to hatch. It’s life that keeps me from coming in to this world. Of the Steemit writers I mentioned, I that’s what I think when I read their stories. “Lucky sonuvabitch.”

Without complaining to much on the substance of my life, my life is a series of obstacles that keeps me from actually writing. @guthrie up for school, lunch packed, social commitments, community commitments, school functions, shoots, endless editing, angry clients, birthday parties, gallery events, and on and on. I always think to Stephen King’s book, “On Writing” […which I need to read again], talking about when the door is open, and when the door I closed […to write]. I can never seem to get that damn door to close. Right now, though, here I sit. It’s quiet.

I met with @lovejoy this afternoon to visit. He’s holed up in the suburbs and has been for the week. He’s a great friend, but our talks are almost always fruitful, often times birthing some great idea like the retro #newsteem ad we finally completed, or some profound personal insight. We talked about the usual array of topics, and we eventually came to a broad question of “…what is that one thing that we want, that deserves our time and attention?”. For me, it was this comic, near future, blockchain based world I’ve been developing for almost three years.

You can actually visit a post that I made over three years ago, “Full script of issue #001 of Cryptopia, my Steemit inspired comic!”. All of this time, and all of the photography and travel I’ve done; all of the packed lunches, school events and community commitments that’ve kept me from “closing the door”, as Mr. King puts it, this is the thing I think of most. It’s an entire world that’s been developing in my head like George R.R. Martin novel. My inability to get that world to the page, I think, is likely responsible for my growing resentment towards my photography career.

In a revelation, during that conversation with @lovejoy, I shed one of the biggest hindrances to it becoming a reality and that is the insistence […to myself] that it has to be a graphic novel. @lovejoy told me about one of his friends, a writer, who told him that a novel, in that form, is the source material. If you’re a screen writer for a production company, you’re just making meat for the butcher, but if you complete a novel, that is the canon for any medium that follows. Comics, films, TV series. It all comes from the novel, and I accepted that.

I’ve still got a lot of obstacles to clear, and by no means do I want to make a pretentious proclamation that “…I’m writing a novel.”. I guess what I’m looking to do here is making a slightly less pretentious proclamation that I intend to write a novel. That’s a big step, for me at least. For the first time in a long time, I’m hopeful for the coming year. There’s a lot of uncertainty, but I’m also feeling more liberated than ever. I’m ending my night with a name, and the first page. I have a deep gratitude for Steemit as a fellowship of creatives that I can share these steps and milestones along the way.