Welcome to Jake the Author! You may be wondering a few things: first, who is Jake? Well, I'm Jake. You probably know who I am if you're reading this, but let me introduce myself briefly just in case you don't. I'm a sports buff, film nerd, literature fan, and music enthusiast. You may or may not have read some of my movie reviews, and if so I think the second thing you may be wondering is why I'm writing a second blog when that one is already fairly time-consuming. Good question. I think the answer has something to do with my caged desire for people to see the projects that I've spent the last few years of my life writing. Yes, I do have a day job, and I am actively continuing my journey for higher-education, but I have a passion as well that I feel I must indulge. My name is Jake, and I'm an (aspiring) author.
I don't know when my quest for authorship first began, though I can think of various times throughout my life when I've dipped my toe into creative writing. One of my early forays into storytelling was a childhood attempt to completely rip off a story that was already spoofing another series of novels that I loved - Goosebumps. These children's horror books used to enthrall me as a kid, so much so that I even enjoyed the parody that was Gooflumps. Looking back on it, I have no idea what I saw in the two-part series of books that clearly had little sophistication in its satire of the R.L. Stine stories, but it inspired me to write a very derivative copy-of-a-copy entitled, "The House that Threw Up". Given that I was barely old enough to use a word processor at the time, I'm sure it was complete garbage, but that didn't stop my mom from fawning over it as a would-be work of classic literature. Regardless of the sincerity of her compliments, I went on from that experience with a renewed confidence in my ability to write.
The next time my flair for creativity (if you could call it that) made an appearance was during fifth grade, when everyone in my English class was required to write a story of their choosing. With no limitation on genre and hardly any structure to the assignment, there were autobiographical stories, fantastical stories, science fiction stories, and all kinds of crazy mash-ups of other genres that made their way into our notebooks. My best friend at the time created a fairly unique monster tale that I was desperately jealous of. In fact, it was his story that I chose to emulate for my own version starring Karl Malone, Jr. fighting a variation on Godzilla. Needless to say, it wasn't my best work, and I seem to remember getting a somewhat disappointing B or B- on the assignment when all was said and done.
From there, I slowly became more technically proficient in word-crafting through necessity. Junior High and High School brought with them a multitude of English classes that required a certain amount of writing, not to mention the numerous essays that were assigned in History classes and the like. Eventually, I developed into a competent writer, even imagining a future occupation for myself as a journalist. I managed the sports page in my High School newspaper as a result of that goal, and went on to do the same for my college newspaper, The Snow Drift, during my freshman year (though that didn't exactly end well).
Years have passed since my days as a journalism student, and I've since focused most of my efforts on pursuing a degree in the field of Psychology as well as spending time with the love of my life. Still, there has always been a part of me that didn't want to give up the idea of progressing as a writer. In 2010 I was working a call center job that had a lot of downtime depending on the time of year. As our computers weren't compatible with YouTube or social networking sites, I had to come up with some other way to wile away the hours until I was off the clock. I began by re-reading some of my favorite books (the Harry Potter series, The Hunger Games series, etc.), but it wasn't until I was half-way through the Sherlock Holmes stories that I began to entertain the idea of writing a novel of my own.
That may seem like a much longer personal history than you were promised, but I wanted to give you an idea of my background in writing to set the tone for future entries. Unlike a lot of these kinds of introductions, however, this does not end with my success story... at least, not yet. I did use my downtime to write a young adult mystery book and even completed two sequels. I'll go into more detail on this series and what it means to me in future posts, as well as the other projects I've been developing. The point is, none of these books have been published, either professionally or through a self-publisher. I don't believe a passion should necessarily be in pursuit of a financial reward or even public recognition. That's not why I choose to spend hours of my time translating my imagination to the page, nor is it the reason I'm starting this blog. I just want to share my passion and maybe establish a dialogue with others who share that passion. Whatever your goals in writing, I believe your time on the keyboard or scribbling on a notebook is well-spent regardless of the outcome.
As for this blog, I'm still working out the details of what I'd like it to become. I will probably share my thoughts on writing either in relation to my own works, or reflecting on books or screenplays that I either admire or in which see a lot of room for improvement. What would you like to see on this blog? Do you have goals for writing that you haven't had time to achieve or simply haven't had the courage to try? Let me know in the comments section below and maybe I'll make it a topic for a future blog post! Anyway, thanks for reading and don't forget to write!
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