For Starters.

I am horrified of failing. Fumbling the ball from time to time is nothing new to the human experience or some mind-bending concept. It is something we all deal with day in and day out.

Failure has a way of leeching on to you, waiting in the darkest folds and deepest corners of our mind, only coming out in the most private moments of reflection. Many of my nights have been ruined by the ever present echoes of failures past, leaving me cringing in bed, hiding under the pillow hoping maybe that its little scratchy voice would lose sight of me in the complete blackness of the fabric.

And that is only for the everyday things, a flubbed joke, bad advice, or just general idiocy. The important things. The failing at something you need to go right, you have to complete, something that you consider to be a reflection of yourself. That changes you. That is the dream killer.

Many times I have chosen to not pursue something because the mere thought of failure would play with my heart. This isn’t some abstract concept to me. I stopped pursuing music composition because of it. I got in my head. And I killed those dreams myself thinking I was saving it from dying at the hands of failure. I was just saving myself.

I managed to keep the root idea though. Storytelling. I wanted to tell stories. Connect with people intimate ways make them love, hate, laugh, cringe, I need to get through to others. I want to entertain you.

The Pivot.

I have been an avid reader for years, and I had tried my hand at fashioning together a tale or two during High school. Nothing ever came from it besides some ideas, good and bad, but still the drive was there. I had other people in my life who liked writing, I would help them from time to time with narrative ideas and even co-write some stuff without any credit.

After a time I became more realistic with my goals. Rather than trying to build the three part massive Sci-fi saga the first go around, I should probably start something small then work my way up. So I wrote my first flash fiction, it was about five hundred words, in a night then sent it to my friends and family for their thoughts and any creative input they had.

It was awful. Nobody could pickup on the (what I thought was) subtle twist at the end, there were typos throughout my half-page story, and it was just generally vague, a comment of most of my earlier works.

But for the first time in my life I had matured enough to know that it was not over. I rewrote it from the ground up, now it was six hundred words, and I took it less seriously this time because of the likelihood of another failure with my audience.

They liked it a lot better though! And I found sometime after writing the story again that I enjoyed writing more the second time, I felt more satisfied with the end result. It was something I was proud of, and I made it through pushing through the failure. Actually saving the dream.

I submitted the story to be published by my college and had it included in a Zine created by the Writers Club of my University a few years later. So it could be found if someone looked hard enough in the right archives, but that is most likely the end for that tale. (I am honestly impressed it made it into any kind of publication considering that was the very first thing I wrote.)

Why Here?

I have reached another point where I needed to risk failure. With my biggest project steadily coming closer to completion, I have decided I wanted to begin submitting my work to actual publication outlets soon.

I was told starting a blog would help get my name become more accessible to people and could potentially help my image as an actual writer. I have my own reservations about whether this will work or not, but it is another way to keep me more accountable with my projects at the least.

I want this to document my journey on becoming a published author. I will post updates about my writing process, the issues I have experienced while trying to write while working full-time shift work, and maybe even some stories as well. I hope you can join me for the ride! I will try to post stuff on Thursdays for the time being just so we have a set date.

I hope you stay Happy and Safe!

Jachin