Hey,
I don’t think I will edit this post much. I want it to be as close to the real me as possible, and not edited into a regular, bland, blog post.
My name is J.R. Young and I’m an aspiring author. I finished the first draft of my second novel earlier this year. Now, I’m editing my first completed novel and gearing up to launch a series of short stories on Royal Road!
My journey into writing began with a need for independence as an artist and a desire to explore my potential. You see, I was young and wayward. I lacked purpose and direction. I played the drums and loved music, but there was no desire to truly master the discipline. I was driven only by a young ego in need of validation. I was a teenager.
And, like most teenagers these days, I loved video games. Actually, video games may have been my first love. Age of Empires, Warcraft, and Diablo were what I cut my teeth on. I wasn’t even double digits back then- playing on Windows 98 at my aunt's house.
Eventually, I moved on to Call of Duty, Tekken, Madden, and various other games. The only real constant was Warcraft, which, by the time my gaming ‘addiction’ reached its fever pitch in my mid-teens, had released World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online role-playing game- an MMORPG for short.
During that time I made friends with people who loved video games as much as myself. We even dabbled with the idea of designing and developing our own video games. A buddy of mine was an excellent artist, but I was not- at all. I couldn't draw a straight line. He was our would-be asset creator and visual designer. I took it upon myself to learn how to program and develop the games, but I didn't enjoy it, and my enthusiasm quickly diminished. Both my buddy and I wrote stories for our games and worked on the overall design, and that is where a seed took root, but it didn't blossom right away.
My addiction to video games began to subside around seventeen or eighteen when I started playing in bands and taking music a little more seriously. I was young and unsure of myself, despite making strides as a musician. I wanted to find my place in the world. I wanted to understand myself better, and where I really stood amongst my peers. And the pressures of that looming abyss known as ‘adulthood’, had me on the search for solid ground.
I looked at my test scores from my ACT and Composite Test, discovering that writing and reading comprehension were my two best subjects. This led me to try my hand at writing actual prose. I wanted to write stories like those I had experienced in the Warcraft universe, or like the Lord of the Rings- my favorite movies. I really wanted to become a writer for a big video game company. Not only did I think it would be a cool way of making money, but I also thought it would be a fulfilling pursuit, offering me the opportunity to inspire people to wonder, to think, and to live better. The reality that I will never be a rock star settled in somewhere during my early twenties. I had little else but a hunch and an idea, but this led me deeper and deeper into the world of writing. I researched the writers responsible for the stories that shaped my childhood: J.R.R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Chris Metzen, Masashi Kishimoto, and Kentaro Miura. They were all responsible for opening doors to new worlds and setting off an explosion of imaginative ideas in my, then, developing brain. I started using online resources such as Youtube, EdX.com, and Khan Academy to learn the mechanics of writing. Author Brandon Sanderson, also a Professor at BYU, released an entire series of lectures, filmed in class. I've watched those lectures numerous times throughout the years and always learn something new each time. As a musician, there comes a time when you can just 'play'. You can feel the music and you flow through each section with ease and grace. You can hear what you want to do before you do it. And you hit every note with precision. There's little time to think. If you get lost in your thoughts, you will get left behind. You enter into a special place that many these days refer to as the 'flow state'. It is a space between what is known and practiced, and what is yet to be discovered.
When writing, this is how I feel. There are no drum rudiments, only grammar. There are no notes or time signatures, but there is diction and pacing. Writing and drumming are different. And yet, they are very similar practices, both of which can take you to that mental place of flow state, where the known and the unknown find each other, combining to create something new.
In truth, I think it is impossible to be anywhere but the flow state when writing. Yes, editing can be tedious at times and requires a more mechanical and methodical approach. When you are writing, however, and the words are flowing out of you and onto the page, what else could that be?
I love being in the space between the known and the unknown. It has become a driving force in my life. I want to understand it better- the whole picture- the known and the unknown. I believe it can only be found through the pursuit of understanding myself, the world, and the part I play as an individual within the collective.
All of this seems very pretentious when reading it back to myself. Philosophers, theologians, and academics have been trying to understand the world since the dawning days of humankind. Men much smarter than myself have fallen short time and time again at this task. Yet, I feel as though each and every iteration of this pursuit has helped push humanity forward. Through the pursuit of understanding, we have uncovered so many mysteries: physics, mathematics, psychology, sociology, and more. In our modern world, we can heal diseases that were once incurable. We can trace the lineage of ideas, from Einstein to Newton to Pythagoras. None of this would be possible without writing.
We are all a part of one big story: The story of humanity. I don’t mind if I never become a wealthy author or if my name will be remembered hundreds of years from now. I write because I have to. If you are a writer or an artist of any kind, you understand. This energy- this potential- will find an outlet. I write because I want to harness that energy and use it to help drive humanity (and myself) toward a positive future.
My hope for this blog is to serve as a means for me to practice my prose and become a better writer. Hopefully, I can inspire someone out there on the internet to become a better writer, too. I will post fiction and non-fiction on this blog, but primarily non-fiction. We stand on the shoulders of giants and most of what I offer on this blog will not be unique. However, you will be able to easily access information through my blog that you may have otherwise been forced to pay for, and you will save a lot of time- time that could be spent writing. As a bonus, I will occasionally post fictional short stories- free for your viewing!
I guess that’s everything. Thanks for visiting my writing blog. Make sure to follow my social media to stay as up-to-date as possible. And don't forget to sign up for my mailing list in order to receive special deals and promotions!
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