My Story
I’ve always had a passion for telling stories. My mom loves to tell people that I told my first story -which I think was about a red horse- when I was three years old. As a kid I was very smart but physically awkward and uncoordinated because of a childhood deformity that caused my legs to curve painfully inward, making it difficult to walk and impossible to run. I can remember coming home from grade-school in tears because nobody would play with me, or from the cruelness of playground bullies. Loneliness drove me to escape into my imagination where I could be the hero of my own stories. Growing up, I was often happiest playing make-believe in the woods behind our house nestled in the Capital Forest of Washington State.
While I was always encouraged to be creative by my parents, it wasn’t until I was in fifth grade that a very special person changed my life forever. On my teacher’s suggestion, my parents enrolled me in a short creative writing class over the summer taught by a man named Steve Charak. Steve was all knees and elbows with an oversized nose and a constant grin. He spoke to children as equals, because to Steve they were his peers. I may have learned my alphabet, spelling, and grammar from school, but Steve taught me how to write. His mantra was “Just Get It Down.” We weren’t criticized for sentence structure or even bad plots. Over the years our friendship grew as Steve gave me the confidence to start sharing the stories that had been my sole consolation in my loneliness.
It was that confidence that helped me to not only write my first full-length play while in seventh grade, but to direct it and act in it as well. I wrote more plays, which garnered honors and, coupled with my scholastic achievements, eventually led to my being accepted at Saint Martins University as a college freshman at the age of 15. I was called a child prodigy, but in reality loneliness had caused me to sink into a deep depression. After counseling with my parents, I quit college after one year to finish my schooling at the local high school.
I soon made friends with the “drama kids” and found acceptance among other young people exploring their creativity. Eventually we formed an acting company and put on a rock musical that I co-wrote with a good friend of mine named Nelson Brown. “Techies” as the show was called, was considered a local success and resulted in various honors and awards for our acting company and myself. I was enjoying the most success my writing had ever produced, but at the age of 19 I had to make a decision.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had a responsibility to serve a two-year mission. I decided to put everything else on hold and spent two years on and around the Navajo Reservation in New Mexico
Not long afterward I passed through a very long, difficult period in my life. Physical limitations from my childhood resurfaced with a vengeance and I found myself often unable to get out of bed for days at a time. I tried to write, but it seemed that depression had choked off my creativity. I didn’t want to tell stories anymore. I continued to go to school, including a year at a film school in Vancouver, Canada, but I still did very little writing.
I’d like to say that there was a single moment, a turning point that I could give a date and time to when my life turned around. But I can’t. I know of no other way to deal with problems than faith, hope, and determination. It took me several years, but I eventually began to find peace in my life once again. I met and married the love of my life, Elicia Hayward, and achieved a major personal milestone by getting my Bachelor of Arts degree from the Evergreen State College.
I also rediscovered my writing. I joined the Pacific Northwest Writers Association and began to learn more about my craft as well as the more practical side of writing. I began work on a number of short stories and other projects, one of which, a short story called “Disconnected”, was a finalist for the PNWA’s annual literary contest in 2010.
It was around this same time that I got the idea of starting my own website and posting my stories to introduce new readers to me and my work. While the website is relatively young right now, I hope that everyone who visits the site will enjoy reading my stories as much as I enjoy writing them. I also hope that maybe by sharing a little bit of my personal story, that I can in some small way help others overcome their own trials, while also saying thank you to all those who have helped me over the years.