Giveaway & Guest Post: I Cannot Write a Book

Writing a book is not what I thought it was going to be. I had seen the growth in authors. The draw it had. Instant success. (Many think.) The numerous attempts at creating worlds, but I never thought I would be drawn in. I am a math teacher. Not a writer. When we make a decision to enter a field of study, we stick with it. We do the same job every day because that is what our parents have done. What their parents have done. And their parents. Stepping out of the norm requires time. Effort. Space. Energy. And know how.

I told myself that for several years. Why even try? It is not worth the time. Would anyone even read it? There was a fear of rejection. A risk that I was not quite ready to take.

Where was the shift? When did I decide to just go for it? It was gradual and in the most unlikely time of my life. Senior year while student teaching. Driving forty minutes one way every morning at six o’clock. Teaching for eight hours. Making the return trip that afternoon. Preparing for the next day. Then doing it all over again. Was it great? Yes. Did I enjoy teaching? Yes. Am I still teaching? Yes.

But there was something missing. Something exciting that I was not able to find as the monotony continued. I wanted more. The last push to the cliff was seeing what my students were reading. The Hunger Games. Twilight. Divergent. The Maze Runner. Great books. Good stories. But I wanted more. Not just for me, but for them. I wanted them to enter the same Imaginarium I entered as a kid reading The Giver, The Chronicles of Narnia,Hatchet, Lord of the Rings,and Holes. Mainstream books today do not excite me like these. Do not mystify. Do bring me to their world.

So, my escape became my drive. Forty minutes. Sometimes longer depending on traffic. Plenty of time to think. I begin to imagine a world from thin air. Something not unlike our own, but with some mystique. Something unsettling, but not known. Something that the mind of a child or young adult could take a run with no parameters. Is this original? No. People have done it for years, and it has worked. Why fix something that is not broken.

I decided the reader must be the one to connect the dots. The storyline does not have to fill all the holes because people do that naturally. I took a risk.

One that had great costs like I expected, but great reward. For one, I am enamored by this series. Ever extra moment I have goes into making this dynamic world better. It has taken quite a bit of time to create the world. To develop the characters. To bring them into the light. But it has been worth it. I would not change the decision. Am I famous? No. Is that a goal? No. If my book inspires even one, then I am satisfied. Though, my hope is that it will one day inspire a generation to create. To fantasize. To dream.