“There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you.” (Beatrix Potter, English writer)
Writing comes naturally to me. Since I was a very young boy, I found the written word made it easy to express myself. As I grew, any training I received in school only helped to strengthen my relationship with print media. My entire post-secondary experience was to further my command of the written word. I was educated as a journalist. I studied television and radio broadcasting to expand my reach. I worked in many forms of media but I always returned to my first love, writing. As the internet formed, I could access venues unavailable to me before. I began blogging almost immediately after my Mother’s death in 2010. I had maintained profiles on Facebook and other social media, but I failed to use them efficiently. Little by little, my blog grew. What started out as weak, and intentionally simple, soon began to find a sense of form and structure as I played and developed. For well over a decade, I have diligently posted. I do not write my blog because I am looking for money. You will never see my personal work monetized. I have created my own biography, in a sense. Anyone can go back through my history, at least what I have documented over the last 13 years. There is little I have not discussed in one manner or another. Writing is, for me, a daily exercise, a cathartic workout anytime my fingers pound the keys. You can almost feel the cleansing as each letter finds its place. As far back as I can remember, print (in one form or another) was my passion, even if I didn’t know it at the time. Like God and comic books, the connection has never failed. I am, after all, a writer.
"If you aske me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.” (Émile Zola, French playwright)
Strathroy District Collegiate Institute (SDCI) sucked the life out of me for almost 5 years. I suppose high school will do that. Of all the people I knew and all the activities I took part in, there are a few fond memories held by either. I realize now that I was pretty much like any other teenager. I struggled with my identity, I struggled with the social game. I had no idea my world functioned through the eyes of bipolar disorder. This is completely beside the point. Although I played sports like any good breeder would, and participated in heterosexual rites of passage, for the most part I really just wanted to be left alone. My disability often ravaged me, even though it would be more than a decade before I received proper treatment. I tried my best to function and that usually meant projects I could do by myself. It’s not that I’m not a team player, I just find people very noisy and distracting. I function so much better in the silence. It has always been this way for me. I did all the normal things someone my age did in high school. I joined the band, standing at the back of each rehearsal with a string bass in one hand and boredom in the other. I gave football and volleyball and badminton a good try. I did the theatre arts scene, performing in several productions before graduation. I loved and hated English class. The study of writing and style were my favourite lessons. Shakespeare was my friend. I impressed my English teacher with my interest. Although this instructor was not an ally, I excelled in this area, so much so that she introduced me to the librarian and my journey began. Writing always just seemed to fit me, even when I was a kid. I won poetry contests and flourished as an amateur journalist. I dabbled just to see and working on the school newspaper just made sense to me.
I joined the staff of the SDCEye approaching mid-term in my freshman year. The monthly newsletter/newspaper was basic and somewhat redundant, but the idea of being involved in its publication activated something within me. I had been constantly exploring this medium and this venue seemed like a good place to start evolving my craft. At first, I was assigned the sports page, responsible for interviews and such but eventually I was offered something even more exciting for me. My tenure as publisher and editor started with my sophomore year. I was put in charge of almost everything involving the formation of the publication. I not only shaped the essence of the paper but was also responsible for the printing and distribution. I was assignment editor, reporter and publisher all in one very committed young man. I was trained in layout, design and consistency, always under the watchful eye of the editor-in-chief, Mr. Bahnmiller. I instantly fell in love with the process and like a sponge, I absorbed as much information and application as I possibly could. The few years in which I practiced my art may have been simplistic and rather amateurish, yet I still discovered something wonderful in the midst of it all. Like stepping out on the yellow brick road, I had to follow where that road would lead me. I carried my new sense of purpose in the words that were written and the form they had taken. Like a harbinger, it pointed to my future and I finally realized who and what I wanted to be.
As I progressed in my studies, opportunity tried to lead me away. I expanded my base, formally studying journalism for print, in radio and on television. I even branched out in later years and worked exclusively in radio for a time. I had the voice and the looks for it. No matter what the field was, my writing ability always seemed to point me in new directions. I excelled at writing copy and advertising was/remains a cozy fit. It’s strange, when my late partner died in 1995, I stopped writing altogether but when my Mother died in 2010, it inspired me to start again. For the length of those 15 years of silence, I rarely created anything outside of my head. I think holding it all in affected my ability to express myself in terms beyond grief and futility. My ability to write did not pass away but it certainly went into hibernation. I always managed to find a way to not create, to not be inspired. All the pain was all that remained. Rather than using some command of the English language, I fell quiet. For years, it really seemed like there was nothing left for this teller of tales. I still floated in some other place but I just couldn’t find a way to write about it.
I posted my first blog, “Lemon Cupcakes with Icing Sugar Sprinkles” on May 28th, 2010. I touched on music and memories and the way things used to be. I didn’t know it at the time but the grief I felt over my Mother’s death reactivated something within me. As I reached out to my world for sanity, I dove head first into what would turn out to be my pure pleasure. Rather than simply posting once in awhile, I had to post 4 or 5 or 6 times each week. I managed to do this for exactly one year. Borrowed Knowledge did not find an agonizing death, rather it ended with the transformation into a blog much more reasonable to handle. Posting every day interfered too much with work and my home life but I didn’t burn out. I excelled and picked up speed. The first year of my blogging really changed the way I viewed media delivery. I suppose that while many would not consider me old school journalism, I most certainly was brought up in that line of thinking. Blogging became a vehicle, a mechanism with its own reward. After 5 more years of blogging, Surviving God, ran out of steam for me. The confines of the thesis restricted my ability to fully express myself. On January 1st, 2017, I began a new blog, unrestricted by anything but my imagination. For its life it remained a delight to write on a weekly basis. Writing can often be an escape, so Otherland seemed like the perfect tag to write under. Day after day, I never grow tired of putting my thoughts onto paper (so to speak). Blogging, it turns out, is still all that it ever has been, cathartic, structured and relevant. It's not like writing for a job, which can be an art unto itself. I rely on the purge. My direction has changed and after a year of the blog Kelifornication, it has been suggested that I author a book based on my blog. With over 1,000 blogs over a ten year period, its time to clean house. I just didn't think it would take this much time. My archive is huge.
“Everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There’s many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” (Flannery O'Connor, American essayist)
Sometimes the path we are to follow in life is hidden, we are unable to find the direction we are supposed to take. Sometimes the path is clear and focused, leaving little room to wonder or question if you are going the right way. For most of us, setting out on the correct course is a mundane experience, usually determined by circumstance rather than some unique event or school of thought. In no way am I trying to convey that God (or anyone else) comes down and makes the decision for us, pushing us through supernatural means to follow His path versus our own. I guess I still believe that the way we travel is irrelevant, it is the lessons we are to learn as we move forward that should resonate the most. Everyone’s path looks different but all the things we are supposed to absorb are usually the same. If two people cut off each other's finger tip, both will feel exactly the same pain.
I never questioned what I was supposed to be. I just didn’t know it when I came across it. It was there all along, I suppose. For both my educational and professional life, I have followed a few paths at the same time. I specialize in media rather than focusing on my writing. I think in high school I understood my calling. As I was later inundated with higher learning, I drifted away from my natural proclivity. I spent years, decades, paying attention to what would make me more money and I forgot about what really makes me happy. There is nothing more satisfying (including sex) than when I open myself to the course. All the words just come to me these days. I don’t have to think about anything but starting, the rest exudes, sometimes as a dribble and sometimes like a heavy stream. In a sense, putting “pen to paper” is always a trip. Sometimes the visit is quick and sometimes it lasts, but either way it most certainly is a destination I never should have left to begin with. No matter the topic and no matter the style, it all makes sense to me now. It may be a little late, but I should have stayed the course, and followed the path well knowing.
“Your profession is not what brings home your weekly pay check, your profession is what you’re put here on earth to do, with such passion and such intensity that it becomes spiritual in calling.” (Vincent van Gogh, Dutch painter)
I must have sat down and started writing a book a thousand times or more over the years. I have digital records of everything I have written from 1986-2023. This in no way represents the option of authoring only. Every poem, every article, every quote, every letter on page rests safely in my very own cloud. I never delete anything. Motivationally, creating a book wasn't ever about the weight of such an undertaking, rather the size of the body of work that I would have to go through to make any progression. During Covid-19, I had more writing time than ever before. I managed to organize all my work into an outline of the book I now have written. What started more as a novella, quickly turned into a 13 chapter autobiography. Its not the writing process that can seem daunting, but the editing and legal issues that like to stand in the way. Life happens and what once was a "finished" piece must now be rewritten to include or exclude recent events and observations. I may have to go back and change the story to a work of fiction (for legal consideration). When my Dad died, everything which followed shifted my thinking, as far as any book is concerned. The way I see the world I then created became different. My entire thesis dissolved with the truth.
The good news is that any draft or record I made over the last 15 years has been filtered in a way. Therapy is good for the soul as I talk and she records every doubt, every concern, every challenge. If history repeats she can tell me how and why and when. Everything I use in my essays, or even my life, has a exact point. Every secret shared, every concern and fear, is already recorded in my journals and witnessed by the other people in my life. What a precise reference pool.
These days are strange days. I can only imagine that things may only get worse. Human beings never really learn anything, we just continue repeating, over and over until the end. Apparently, foresight and actual application mean little to the men of this age. It's diverting, all this chaos in the world right now. Sometimes I feel like I am at the precipice, watching the dawning of a new time for man. I hope the young people of today fare better with change than us aging folk have. There is much to observe. There is even more to write about. Social media has changed everything. Whether WordPress, FaceBook, Twitter, LinkedIn, InstaGram, TikTok, Messenger, Tumbler, Reddit, Blogger, BlogSpot, Blogarama, whatever the platform, expressing yourself is very easy these days. I can use each one, depending on the format and the message. You'd be surprised what one can access. There are gay apps, and Christian apps, and people who believe clouds can actually talk waiting in chatrooms. The dark web looms. If you want a target audience you can niche almost anything online. You can hide or you can propagate your online persona in an endless stream, in the face, forever. You can post a 100 times a day, whatever you want, anytime you want. It's all about if you want to be found and whether you are looking to be. You have to decide whether privacy is your goal or all those words find greater meaning through expression. In the end, authoring a book does seem like an audacious project on occasion. Inevitably, one must conclude whether all that information requires so much attention. So much written and so much said. Almost everything has become some tagline, a hashtag few even know what to do with. All this work may be for nothing. Authoring something piece by piece is one thing, getting published is another. I think a permanent record is an achievable goal so from this point on, I think, I'll keep it for the book.
