It's official, I'm a writer.

Expect typos...

I had long rebuffed the profession. I was always afraid of the pressure it came with, the expectation to be brilliant and technically sound, two things I've always had trouble maintaining. In high school I wrote two successful pieces of writing that would later come to haunt me. The first was a scene that I wrote for my friends and me to compete with at a theater competition. There was a technicality that disqualified it, but took it to the school talent show later that year and won, and after I graduated they entered it into another competition which they also won. The second was a personal essay I wrote as an assignment for my English class to prepare for our college applications. The teacher liked it so much he read it in class and posted it on the wall. Friends started to ask me for advice on their essays after that.

But then…that was it. I couldn't muster up another good piece of theater, or even flesh that scene into anything longer. My personal essay didn't trump my poor GPA, and when I took the writing exam my freshman year at UC Irvine I placed in the lowest level. Even then, my teachers complimented my creativity but because I wasn't as stellar in formatting or research I lingered in mediocrity. Even the blog took a dry spell, and for most of my college career I found myself with nothing to write about.

Then a few years later, I wrote a post that got me an overwhelming amount of response, spurring on a whole series. But in that I came to realize how rusty I had become. I felt like a boy who got on his soapbox only to find he'd come down with laryngitis. I had not exercised my voice in so long I felt it nearly gone. While I feel regret over not being a better writer then, that was the spark the jump-started my heart for this craft, if only in blog entries. Soon after I dedicated nearly every week to writing a post, and looking back at that year I could see my writing steadily growing again. But still the wonder remained, could I really make this anything more than a weekly op-ed piece among my peers? The question was left unanswered as after moving to New York, my writing dropped the consistency and suddenly became haphazard again. Those old fears quickly followed.

The start of the new year brought a lot of change for me, my most cherished accomplishment is a joy for reading, which is a very new experience and has given me a sharper mind, not to mention some literary heroes:

C. S. Lewis

Neil Simon

It also brought a new inspiration via one Gary Dontzig (head writer for Murphy Brown, Suddenly Susan, & Becker) who started his spiel as a guest speaker in my acting class with a very simple send-off:

"Every actor needs to be writing."

About as general as it can be uttered yet still I felt it speak directly to my situation. I started looking more into the profession, and after talking to a few playwrights and screenwriters I realized something very important--they get scared too. Writers are just like actors in that they don't escape the fear…they work through it. Reminds of something my acting teacher once told me:

"Being a professional isn't about how much experience you have, it's about how much commitment you have."

So that's it. I'm a writer. It's time to trust in the Lord and the gifts He's entrusted to me. There are days when the creativity flows out, and other days--weeks even--where I just can't get a hold of it. Nonetheless I'm going to commit to writing, exploring, experimenting, discovering. I'm not going to worry if brilliance will come, I'm simply going to work for the Lord and let Him show me if I'm going to get there or not. I mean it's His gift in the first place anyway. All the while I'm going to keep working out the muscle in daily committed writing--and get this, regular. blog. posts. After all, consistency is the theme of the year, right? Seems silly to not apply it to the vehicle by which I announced it. I even finished writing my first monologue.

It's going to take some time before I find my stride, but after all these months of auditioning and searching for that custom-fit role...I figure making one of my own is a good use of the wait.

Oh, and Melron, you're a fantastic editor.