Demystifying Authorhood: An Origin Story

There was no Master Plan—only a lifelong need to write

I mentioned in a recent post that I love nostalgia. That I have a thing for looking back on life.

So I thought I’d share my modest, writer upbringing with you. Especially those who have recently subscribed or followed and want to know how it all began…

Childhood

The year was 1987. I was what they called a “latchkey kid”, the ones who often returned to an empty house after school because their parents or guardians were working. At the time, my mother was working part-time at a local deli while my step-father worked as an electrician.

In the afternoons myself and a small number of students hung around for our after-school program. I can recall only one day in all the days I attended that program. It was near the holidays and when I walked into the room, on the round table was a pile of yarn, fabric, and paper. That image has been stamped onto my mind and will likely remain there for the rest of my life.

Why?

Because on that day, the teacher told us we were going to make books.

I can’t recall if it was me who said it or the one other child in the room, but something to the effect of: “I can’t make a book” popped out of someone’s mouth.

The teacher replied with one of those corny messages: “You can do anything.” Or something to that effect.

I don’t recall making the book. I don’t even remember writing the story. What I do remember was sitting on the living room floor alone, paging through this thing I had made all by myself. I chose the fabric for the cover. I chose the yarn that held the book together. I came up with the title. And I wrote and illustrated the story. I was involved in the process from beginning to end, and that feeling I had while lying there reveling in my own work, was and continues to be indescribable.

It was life-altering. I had always believed that books must’ve come from some higher up being. Or created from some machine.

Never did I think that I could WRITE A BOOK.

I had become empowered.

From that moment on, I was on fire. I constantly wrote stories, illustrated them and developed each one into a book. Stories about my pets and about magic and about tornadoes and storms. Anything that bothered or worried me, I wrote about. Often when at home alone I would take out my action figures, set them up scene by scene, and as they acted out each scene, I wrote it up into a story. As if I were some playwright.

I wrote and I wrote and I wrote.

Teenage Years

Once I entered into middle school, I was still writing, but much darker material. In fact, some of my material was so dark that my mother worried about me. She would show my stories to my aunt and ask if she should send me to see a psychologist. Thankfully my aunt took it in stride and said, “no, he’s just working stuff out.” And she was right. I was.

High school was really hard for me. I was closeted. Home life was unpredictable. There were a lot of changes that happened all at once. Some of them scary, others plain old depressing. I developed insomnia. I holed myself up in my room, unbeknownst to myself or anyone else that I was autistic without the words to express what was going on with me.

And I continued writing.

I wrote my first novel in high school. It was titled, “The Great Escape”, about a man trying to escape his boring and depressing life to run away to the coast. It was horribly written, of course, but as I look back now, I see it was a story masking my own gender dysphoria. The deeply repressed reality that there was a male presence within me dying to come out.

No wonder I was looking for an escape.

I thank God that I discovered writing as early on as I did. It had become my therapist, and I am certain that it might’ve even saved my life.

College

I also thank God for college. Finally, I had found a place where I could spend more time on writing, and get a degree for it!

Throughout my late teens and early twenties, a significant piece of my college experience included a number of church trips I took to Central America. That’s right, I was a missionary, once. That’s a story for another time.

The experiences I had in Central America had such an impact on my writing. The final writing project in one of my fiction courses was to write a short story. My novelette, Oval Alien Full of Dust came from this class. I loved the story so much that I used an independent study so I could work on it further. When I was in my English courses, I was in my element, which reflected through consistent Dean’s List honors and a 4.o average GPA. I say that to make a point: as someone with ADHD who did not know I had ADHD until much later in life, these solid grades were proof that I was meant to write.

I loved writing so much that I immersed myself further by becoming the Co-Editor of The Licking River Review (no longer in publication) for two years. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to edit a college literary magazine, just for the pure feeling alone.

Post-Grad

After college, I was lost. I wanted to be a writer, but I did not know how. Back in the early 2000s, there was virtually no clear path to publication from where I stood. For a time, I stopped writing. I attempted to have “Oval Alien Full of Dust” published in literary magazines but received rejection after rejection.

During that time in my life, I had also begun coming out as a lesbian (didn’t realize I was trans until mid-40s). I felt deeply the inequalities that existed in our country at a time when gay marriage had not yet been legalized. And my various trips to Central America had taught me everything I needed to know about income inequality, racism, and poverty.

And I wanted to do something about it.

So I went back to school for a Master of Social Work degree.

In those four years of schooling, I mostly wrote papers. I thrived. And I had two separate professors tell me I needed to be writing.

But the question remained…HOW???

The “no writing” phase

Throughout graduate school I made no time to write fiction. And after I graduated, it would be another year or so before I began to miss writing, and began remembering my dream to be a writer.

I began working on another novel, titled, The Personification of Zen that although never became publishable, was the exact primer I needed for what came next…

My debut novel, Sentient

In 2013, I went vegan. Being the staunch activist I was clearly born to be, it made sense to me to stop participating in a food system that violently took the lives of animals, and so on and so forth.

In becoming vegan, the idea for my Sentient trilogy dropped into my lap in the most subtle way, as a story idea often does. But it was so strongly in alignment with my values that it could not be ignored.

It took ten years of writing every single Sunday while I worked full-time as a social worker, but I got the job done.

FINALLY, in 2022 I SELF-PUBLISHED MY FIRST NOVEL…AT THE AGE OF 42.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I like many others was siloed from my job. I was blessed to have a flexible enough boss that I suddenly had an abundance of time to write. Not only did I complete my first novel, but I simultaneously wrote The Animalist Code series, and began work on a children’s book series as well.

I became what you might call…prolific.

I went on to self-publish Sentient Rising in 2023…

And Sentient Being in 2025…

The wonder years…

During that same year when I published my debut novel, I also began my transition. I entered my second puberty, and my life truly began to change. And improve. The self-discovery brought with it a realization that I was not only autistic, but that I also have ADHD. Through much spiritual transformation, solitude and internal juggling, I came to know and love myself more authentically.

What does this have to do with the writing?

Everything.

Because it is how I found my way here.

After the pandemic ended and people began returning to work, I experienced a traumatic event (for another Substack, maybe) that required me to reduce work hours. I was blessed with a financial situation in which I had freedom to work part-time while pursuing my writing career. It was time for me to begin prioritizing my dream, and finally I had found the path through which success might be possible.

I became self-employed, and never looked back.

Today…

Today, I feel blessed. I realize many people do not have the chance to work on their writing careers as much as I do. But I also worked really hard to get to where I am today. If it were not for that Master of Social Work degree, I would not have so many freedoms I have right now. I used to believe that going back to school to become a social worker derailed my opportunity to write.

But as it turns out, it paved the way to where I am today.

On average, I spend about 10-15 hours per week on my social work job. I spend another 5-6 hours on my writing career, including Sundays.

I spend the remaining hours prioritizing my spiritual life, spending time in nature, and other self-care necessities. I successfully run two businesses, but that means I need as much time for rest as I put in to my work.

So here I am. Working quietly on my 4th novel and a few other side projects.

The other day a friend said they just could not understand how I was able to keep on writing and complete novels and stories, expressing their own struggles with the completion of even a page, much less a novel.

But writing is medicine. More so than that, for me writing is like the air I breathe. It is a necessity and my life trajectory has proven that. It’s what I was meant to do, and I am grateful I get to be here to share it with you.

Thanks for reading.

Jay.