on November 18 2017 I experienced a
dream come true
I was at a local bookstore and my name
was on the science it was a sunny fall
afternoon and everything had gone
perfectly the book cover looked great
marketing campaign had gone off
excellently and dozens of people showed
up to ask me to sign their books and
asked me about my writing process I
couldn’t believe this was actually my
life it was so surreal and it was a
moment of victory it was at the launch
of my fourth book an ally of the series
that I’ve been writing for nearly a
decade and it was an incredible sense of
victory relief and celebration to
finally be at this mountaintop moment
however it was also pretty unnerving for
ten years I’ve known what I was going to
be doing next year and here I could not
be here after that my creative paths
have been forged and I knew exactly how
to follow it until I reached the end of
this series I had this strange moment of
wondering what comes next
can I ever top what I’ve already done am
i peaked do I even want to do this again
to create another book project to fully
understand this moment you have to flash
back to the beginning of my journey I
was a kid who loved to read and I read
as often as I could everywhere that I
could flash light or in a tree however I
did not always love to write my hand
gave me head cramps and I just thought
that is until I was in fifth grade and I
began a creative writing project for the
first time I had to finish a project
about a rabbit caught in a trap in a
blizzard and so I finished the
assignment and I gave it to my mom to
read and to my great surprise she began
to cry in front of me and I thought oh
no I’ve written the worst story ever but
to my surprise again she told me that
this pretend story
created about a rabbit that didn’t exist
in a blizzard that I’ve made up made her
feel the real emotion of sadness it
actually changed the way she felt and I
have this light bulb go off in my head I
realized that when I create a story even
though it may not be a real setting it
can change people’s emotions it can
change how they think it can change the
world when I write that story I can
change the reality around me and all of
sudden writing became much more
appealing it was a sense of power and
excitement that that I can be a part of
changing the world through writing and
so by the time I was 14 I decided this
is what I really want to do with my life
it was like discovering a mountain in
the distance Neil Gaiman’s author of
Stardust and many other famous books
describe this in a speech to a group of
art students graduating he called it
make good arms and he describes that
creative project as a mountain in the
distance and that every time you’re
offered an opportunity on the creative
path you have to decide will this take
me closer to my mountain or farther away
from it and that’s how you can evaluate
the opportunities that come your way so
early on in my life I discovered what
that mountain was and I began to pursue
it with passion and without fear
blissfully unaware of things that could
go wrong along the way I began to do
things like practice exhaustively I
joined groups of other students who
loved to write I sought feedback I
listened to author talks and it was full
of passion and enthusiasm because I
discovered what I felt was my mountain
fast forward a few years I decided to
study creative writing in college and I
began to realize that the path to the
mountain can have obstacles in it so I
discovered that there are things like
criticism that come along the way
publisher rejection that’s a lot of fun
and the fact that when you graduate from
college with an English degree of
writing job as a novelist may not be
waiting for you tidally packaged on the
other
that that was a bit of a setback those
obstacles from without but part of the
obstacle discovery was obstacles coming
from within myself the discovery of what
many creatives
call the inner critic that that voice
inside telling me you are absolutely
incapable of doing this this is gonna be
terrible no one’s ever gonna read it why
are you even bothering to try so it’s a
pretty nasty voice coming from inside
but it’s it’s pretty normal among
creatives to have that voice coming in
from there I actually read it a few
years later an anecdote by Elizabeth
Gilbert author of Eat Pray Love and she
describes her own journey of coming to
grips with fear from the inside she
imagines fear and the other voices
inside us have been part of her psyche
as a family on a road trip and that
early on in her creative career fear
would always tell them where they were
going and drive the vehicle and so as
she got more mature in her her journey
she imagined herself having this
conversation with fear and saying fear I
appreciate that you’re part of the
family I appreciate they’re here to help
me make the decisions and keep from
dying
you may come on the family Richard you
may offer your input one thing you may
not do is Drive and that gave me a lot
of inspiration along the way because I
realized there will be a part of the
journey but it’s about developing a
healthy relationship with fear and not
allowing fear to make decisions I had a
couple of opportunities to explore this
other relationship along the way in
college was when I started actually
writing my first published book the
eliminators gift and I began to write it
in my college dorm room around the time
I was realizing that things like
criticism exist realizing this may never
go anywhere and I realized that I wanted
to do it anyway I loved writing so much
that I would do it for free I didn’t
care if anybody saw it I mean it would
be nice but continued with that process
because I really wanted to write this
this story I felt like I had something
to say so I continued with that project
grant graduated from college and faced
other crossroads pretty shortly after
graduation one of my first jobs out of
college was as a nanny and I have a nice
steady job going good family good kids
and best of all a steady income and I
still remember the day I quit
it was a very difficult decision because
that steady income was hard to turn down
especially is it recent English graduate
with not not sure what I was going to do
next but I remember reaching a
crossroads where I had to decide am I
going to be able to move closer to my
goal of writing am I going to be able to
pursue opportunities and it worked
closely tied or am I going to stick to
what I know this steady job and I
thought about it a lot because it was
very hard to turn down something that
was so steady but I ultimately decided
that the mountain mattered more that if
I was going to move closer to that that
I needed to step out and pursue
opportunities that were more closely
tied to that dream I did and I’m glad
that I made that choice another
crossroads came down the road when I
actually finished writing the first book
it took me about five years to complete
my first manuscript that I was ready to
seek publication for so as I began to be
get ready to publish I had conversations
with other authors I did lots of
research to figure out what was the best
route to pursue for publishing and I
specifically remember a conversation
with one author who had been writing for
more than 10 years but in those 10 years
she had published successfully two books
many fewer than she actually written and
of those two one had gone out of print
and so after ten years she had one book
still in circulation
and so I remember having this
conversation with myself where I
realized is this is this the best thing
I think I can do for myself and I
ultimately after weighing my options
decided to self-publish I decided to
take that gamble and better myself
that with the skills and the knowledge I
had
that I could publish more books in less
time keep more of my earnings and more
creative control that I went through a
more traditional path it was again a
very scary decision lots of fear coming
on there because a traditional path is
set for you it’s easy or easier and this
was not I didn’t know anybody else who
had done this but I decided this was the
best path to get my story out there and
to keep on moving toward my mountain so
I did I published the book and one would
think that would be the end of the story
hooray published out in the world but as
a matter of fact it was only the
beginning of the next journey not only
was there were there more books to write
as I continued with my series I wrote
three more books in five years to the
next five years but it also set me off
on this roller coaster of being my own
publisher and my only marketer and
suddenly there were lots of hats to wear
it when people think of a professional
writer when I thought of a professional
writer
I haven’t imagined someone quietly
sequestered playing a cozy attic
probably wearing a beret and sipping a
cup of tea but in fact that may be part
of the journey but it actually involves
a lot more hats than just the beret
so during the five years in which I was
um promoting my own series I learned to
wear lots of hats
I learned to juggle the ups and downs of
hiring creative contractors I learned to
run a table at a Book Fair I’d learned
to do lots of speaking as an introvert
that was a scary journey I did
interviews with anyone who would ask
I’ve learned to do my own social media
and scariest of all my own accounting so
there were lots of hats to wear and they
all came with their own levels of fear
everything was new and I did a lot of
thinking until I made it
but as along the way I realized that the
more I faked it the more I felt the
confidence that I was projecting and I’m
learning to wear all these hats and try
these new things
I was not only moving
sir to my Mountain but I was becoming a
more confident version of myself which
in itself was a reward there were plenty
of ups along the way I still remember
the day I found out that my book and won
its first award and it was such a
euphoric experience I was so dizzy with
excitement I couldn’t do anything else
for the rest of the day there were also
plenty of downs and continue to be the
rejections have come and continue to
come there are still things I’d like to
be part of that I haven’t yet had the
opportunity to do and that’s all part of
the journey toward the mountain and so
on November 18 2017 I found myself at
the launch of my fourth and final book
in voyages of the legend series and it
was a perfect day I felt like I finally
reached the mountaintop and everything
went well dozens of people turned out
and it was such an exciting moment
especially when I looked at the table in
front of me and I saw the four books
that I’ve written and realized I had
published over a thousand pages of
writing in the last 10 years that was
such an exciting moment to realize I
worked hard I followed the path I kept
on it through the obstacles and reached
something that I’d wanted for such a
long time and it would be nice if that
were the end of the story here we are
about a year afterwards and the
uncomfortable turn here is that I have
not produced another novel in the last
year and that comes with all sorts of
interesting questions from within it’s
not that I haven’t done other projects I
have tried to turn my first book into an
audiobook it’s seen that produced I’ve
done a couple of other shorter works and
seen them written and published and
those have all been exciting in their
own way but the nagging question remains
another will I ever write another novel
do I even want to write another novel
and it came with a series of interesting
and worrisome questions as I began to
wonder about my mountain all these years
I’ve been pursuing that
of writing in front of me was it gone
had I’d been going the wrong direction
did I take a wrong turn somewhere along
the way why was I having these nagging
questions coming from within so I
discovered this quotation by Benjamin
Franklin which gave me a lot of
understanding what was going on he said
either write something worth reading or
do something worth writing and this
helped me to gain perspective on where I
was a year after publishing my final
book I realized that I was tired after
writing a series for ten years I had
reached a point where my creative wall
was drained and then I’ve been writing
for the past experiences and not really
replenishing those along the way and it
left me wondering do I even want to
continue writing this is what I’m after
at all more importantly it led me to the
realization that good writing comes from
living a lot of people think that
writing needs studying pen to paper and
yes that it’s part of the process but
really that’s only the tip of the
iceberg good writing comes from the
things that we do in our lives and the
sensitivity we have to those experiences
and that in the patent the flurry of
writing something worth reading I’d
overlooked doing things that were worth
writing and so this past year I’ve
really set out to to refill that
creative well and try things I’ve not
tried in the past and I’ve really done
some some things that have surprised me
this year I got to bathe a baby elephant
in Thailand I learned to ride a
lawnmower chased fireflies read books
experience love laughter and loss and
even started a new job as a high school
English teacher so all sorts of
experiences have come into my life that
have refilled the creative wall and
given me a new perspective to the point
where I’m realizing while I thought
writing was a mountain somewhere off in
the distance perhaps writing is really
more
a mountain range perhaps this journey is
something that continues to expand in
front of me with new goals that arise
after one is completed I haven’t done a
lot of writing this year but just being
immersed in these experiences is giving
me that new perspective I needed
something forward on that and so I come
to the three three takeaways to writing
your own story it starts with
discovering your Mountain
what is that passion that drives you
that you would do for free that you
would do if no one else were watching
and if no rewards ever came from that
something you would do just for the love
of it it might be a creative path like
writing or it might be something else
when you find that mountain it inspires
you to work towards it and get there
which is the second takeaway to remember
to stick to the journey there will be
obstacles no matter what the path may be
maybe more if you are creative but
sticking to the journey pressing on
through those obstacles is what will
ultimately allow you to achieve that
mountain in the end and finally it’s
important to refill the creative well no
matter how much passion you have for
what you’re doing there will be times
when you feel empty and you need to
replenish those experiences by not just
writing something worth reading but
doing something worth writing and so
here at the at this point in my journey
I find myself still wanting to write
things worth reading
I still love words this is still what I
want to do and I’m more sure of that
than ever
however I am remembering that I also
want to do things worth writing it’s
important to get out and experience life
because that’s where good writing comes
from and I hold on to the premise that
the horizon is wide and it’s never too
late to cubics for me [Applause]
dream come true
I was at a local bookstore and my name
was on the science it was a sunny fall
afternoon and everything had gone
perfectly the book cover looked great
marketing campaign had gone off
excellently and dozens of people showed
up to ask me to sign their books and
asked me about my writing process I
couldn’t believe this was actually my
life it was so surreal and it was a
moment of victory it was at the launch
of my fourth book an ally of the series
that I’ve been writing for nearly a
decade and it was an incredible sense of
victory relief and celebration to
finally be at this mountaintop moment
however it was also pretty unnerving for
ten years I’ve known what I was going to
be doing next year and here I could not
be here after that my creative paths
have been forged and I knew exactly how
to follow it until I reached the end of
this series I had this strange moment of
wondering what comes next
can I ever top what I’ve already done am
i peaked do I even want to do this again
to create another book project to fully
understand this moment you have to flash
back to the beginning of my journey I
was a kid who loved to read and I read
as often as I could everywhere that I
could flash light or in a tree however I
did not always love to write my hand
gave me head cramps and I just thought
that is until I was in fifth grade and I
began a creative writing project for the
first time I had to finish a project
about a rabbit caught in a trap in a
blizzard and so I finished the
assignment and I gave it to my mom to
read and to my great surprise she began
to cry in front of me and I thought oh
no I’ve written the worst story ever but
to my surprise again she told me that
this pretend story
created about a rabbit that didn’t exist
in a blizzard that I’ve made up made her
feel the real emotion of sadness it
actually changed the way she felt and I
have this light bulb go off in my head I
realized that when I create a story even
though it may not be a real setting it
can change people’s emotions it can
change how they think it can change the
world when I write that story I can
change the reality around me and all of
sudden writing became much more
appealing it was a sense of power and
excitement that that I can be a part of
changing the world through writing and
so by the time I was 14 I decided this
is what I really want to do with my life
it was like discovering a mountain in
the distance Neil Gaiman’s author of
Stardust and many other famous books
describe this in a speech to a group of
art students graduating he called it
make good arms and he describes that
creative project as a mountain in the
distance and that every time you’re
offered an opportunity on the creative
path you have to decide will this take
me closer to my mountain or farther away
from it and that’s how you can evaluate
the opportunities that come your way so
early on in my life I discovered what
that mountain was and I began to pursue
it with passion and without fear
blissfully unaware of things that could
go wrong along the way I began to do
things like practice exhaustively I
joined groups of other students who
loved to write I sought feedback I
listened to author talks and it was full
of passion and enthusiasm because I
discovered what I felt was my mountain
fast forward a few years I decided to
study creative writing in college and I
began to realize that the path to the
mountain can have obstacles in it so I
discovered that there are things like
criticism that come along the way
publisher rejection that’s a lot of fun
and the fact that when you graduate from
college with an English degree of
writing job as a novelist may not be
waiting for you tidally packaged on the
other
that that was a bit of a setback those
obstacles from without but part of the
obstacle discovery was obstacles coming
from within myself the discovery of what
many creatives
call the inner critic that that voice
inside telling me you are absolutely
incapable of doing this this is gonna be
terrible no one’s ever gonna read it why
are you even bothering to try so it’s a
pretty nasty voice coming from inside
but it’s it’s pretty normal among
creatives to have that voice coming in
from there I actually read it a few
years later an anecdote by Elizabeth
Gilbert author of Eat Pray Love and she
describes her own journey of coming to
grips with fear from the inside she
imagines fear and the other voices
inside us have been part of her psyche
as a family on a road trip and that
early on in her creative career fear
would always tell them where they were
going and drive the vehicle and so as
she got more mature in her her journey
she imagined herself having this
conversation with fear and saying fear I
appreciate that you’re part of the
family I appreciate they’re here to help
me make the decisions and keep from
dying
you may come on the family Richard you
may offer your input one thing you may
not do is Drive and that gave me a lot
of inspiration along the way because I
realized there will be a part of the
journey but it’s about developing a
healthy relationship with fear and not
allowing fear to make decisions I had a
couple of opportunities to explore this
other relationship along the way in
college was when I started actually
writing my first published book the
eliminators gift and I began to write it
in my college dorm room around the time
I was realizing that things like
criticism exist realizing this may never
go anywhere and I realized that I wanted
to do it anyway I loved writing so much
that I would do it for free I didn’t
care if anybody saw it I mean it would
be nice but continued with that process
because I really wanted to write this
this story I felt like I had something
to say so I continued with that project
grant graduated from college and faced
other crossroads pretty shortly after
graduation one of my first jobs out of
college was as a nanny and I have a nice
steady job going good family good kids
and best of all a steady income and I
still remember the day I quit
it was a very difficult decision because
that steady income was hard to turn down
especially is it recent English graduate
with not not sure what I was going to do
next but I remember reaching a
crossroads where I had to decide am I
going to be able to move closer to my
goal of writing am I going to be able to
pursue opportunities and it worked
closely tied or am I going to stick to
what I know this steady job and I
thought about it a lot because it was
very hard to turn down something that
was so steady but I ultimately decided
that the mountain mattered more that if
I was going to move closer to that that
I needed to step out and pursue
opportunities that were more closely
tied to that dream I did and I’m glad
that I made that choice another
crossroads came down the road when I
actually finished writing the first book
it took me about five years to complete
my first manuscript that I was ready to
seek publication for so as I began to be
get ready to publish I had conversations
with other authors I did lots of
research to figure out what was the best
route to pursue for publishing and I
specifically remember a conversation
with one author who had been writing for
more than 10 years but in those 10 years
she had published successfully two books
many fewer than she actually written and
of those two one had gone out of print
and so after ten years she had one book
still in circulation
and so I remember having this
conversation with myself where I
realized is this is this the best thing
I think I can do for myself and I
ultimately after weighing my options
decided to self-publish I decided to
take that gamble and better myself
that with the skills and the knowledge I
had
that I could publish more books in less
time keep more of my earnings and more
creative control that I went through a
more traditional path it was again a
very scary decision lots of fear coming
on there because a traditional path is
set for you it’s easy or easier and this
was not I didn’t know anybody else who
had done this but I decided this was the
best path to get my story out there and
to keep on moving toward my mountain so
I did I published the book and one would
think that would be the end of the story
hooray published out in the world but as
a matter of fact it was only the
beginning of the next journey not only
was there were there more books to write
as I continued with my series I wrote
three more books in five years to the
next five years but it also set me off
on this roller coaster of being my own
publisher and my only marketer and
suddenly there were lots of hats to wear
it when people think of a professional
writer when I thought of a professional
writer
I haven’t imagined someone quietly
sequestered playing a cozy attic
probably wearing a beret and sipping a
cup of tea but in fact that may be part
of the journey but it actually involves
a lot more hats than just the beret
so during the five years in which I was
um promoting my own series I learned to
wear lots of hats
I learned to juggle the ups and downs of
hiring creative contractors I learned to
run a table at a Book Fair I’d learned
to do lots of speaking as an introvert
that was a scary journey I did
interviews with anyone who would ask
I’ve learned to do my own social media
and scariest of all my own accounting so
there were lots of hats to wear and they
all came with their own levels of fear
everything was new and I did a lot of
thinking until I made it
but as along the way I realized that the
more I faked it the more I felt the
confidence that I was projecting and I’m
learning to wear all these hats and try
these new things
I was not only moving
sir to my Mountain but I was becoming a
more confident version of myself which
in itself was a reward there were plenty
of ups along the way I still remember
the day I found out that my book and won
its first award and it was such a
euphoric experience I was so dizzy with
excitement I couldn’t do anything else
for the rest of the day there were also
plenty of downs and continue to be the
rejections have come and continue to
come there are still things I’d like to
be part of that I haven’t yet had the
opportunity to do and that’s all part of
the journey toward the mountain and so
on November 18 2017 I found myself at
the launch of my fourth and final book
in voyages of the legend series and it
was a perfect day I felt like I finally
reached the mountaintop and everything
went well dozens of people turned out
and it was such an exciting moment
especially when I looked at the table in
front of me and I saw the four books
that I’ve written and realized I had
published over a thousand pages of
writing in the last 10 years that was
such an exciting moment to realize I
worked hard I followed the path I kept
on it through the obstacles and reached
something that I’d wanted for such a
long time and it would be nice if that
were the end of the story here we are
about a year afterwards and the
uncomfortable turn here is that I have
not produced another novel in the last
year and that comes with all sorts of
interesting questions from within it’s
not that I haven’t done other projects I
have tried to turn my first book into an
audiobook it’s seen that produced I’ve
done a couple of other shorter works and
seen them written and published and
those have all been exciting in their
own way but the nagging question remains
another will I ever write another novel
do I even want to write another novel
and it came with a series of interesting
and worrisome questions as I began to
wonder about my mountain all these years
I’ve been pursuing that
of writing in front of me was it gone
had I’d been going the wrong direction
did I take a wrong turn somewhere along
the way why was I having these nagging
questions coming from within so I
discovered this quotation by Benjamin
Franklin which gave me a lot of
understanding what was going on he said
either write something worth reading or
do something worth writing and this
helped me to gain perspective on where I
was a year after publishing my final
book I realized that I was tired after
writing a series for ten years I had
reached a point where my creative wall
was drained and then I’ve been writing
for the past experiences and not really
replenishing those along the way and it
left me wondering do I even want to
continue writing this is what I’m after
at all more importantly it led me to the
realization that good writing comes from
living a lot of people think that
writing needs studying pen to paper and
yes that it’s part of the process but
really that’s only the tip of the
iceberg good writing comes from the
things that we do in our lives and the
sensitivity we have to those experiences
and that in the patent the flurry of
writing something worth reading I’d
overlooked doing things that were worth
writing and so this past year I’ve
really set out to to refill that
creative well and try things I’ve not
tried in the past and I’ve really done
some some things that have surprised me
this year I got to bathe a baby elephant
in Thailand I learned to ride a
lawnmower chased fireflies read books
experience love laughter and loss and
even started a new job as a high school
English teacher so all sorts of
experiences have come into my life that
have refilled the creative wall and
given me a new perspective to the point
where I’m realizing while I thought
writing was a mountain somewhere off in
the distance perhaps writing is really
more
a mountain range perhaps this journey is
something that continues to expand in
front of me with new goals that arise
after one is completed I haven’t done a
lot of writing this year but just being
immersed in these experiences is giving
me that new perspective I needed
something forward on that and so I come
to the three three takeaways to writing
your own story it starts with
discovering your Mountain
what is that passion that drives you
that you would do for free that you
would do if no one else were watching
and if no rewards ever came from that
something you would do just for the love
of it it might be a creative path like
writing or it might be something else
when you find that mountain it inspires
you to work towards it and get there
which is the second takeaway to remember
to stick to the journey there will be
obstacles no matter what the path may be
maybe more if you are creative but
sticking to the journey pressing on
through those obstacles is what will
ultimately allow you to achieve that
mountain in the end and finally it’s
important to refill the creative well no
matter how much passion you have for
what you’re doing there will be times
when you feel empty and you need to
replenish those experiences by not just
writing something worth reading but
doing something worth writing and so
here at the at this point in my journey
I find myself still wanting to write
things worth reading
I still love words this is still what I
want to do and I’m more sure of that
than ever
however I am remembering that I also
want to do things worth writing it’s
important to get out and experience life
because that’s where good writing comes
from and I hold on to the premise that
the horizon is wide and it’s never too
late to cubics for me [Applause]
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