I’m Writing A Book

The first time I saw my work on a printed page was in middle school. My public school was blessed with a lovely English teacher who donated her time to an after-school literary club that printed yearly magazines. The satin, black and white pages were filled with the pourings of our angsty little hearts. It gave us a sense of validation that I think is rare for young artists to receive for things like art and poetry, especially at an underfunded public school. The club reignited my affliction for writing poetry. I had written my first poem in 4th grade and promptly stopped after a bad experience with a teacher and some elementary school plagiarism (an offense I've clearly never gotten over). I’ve been writing ever since but never really thought of it as something for public consumption. What did I have to offer the world of poetry that wasn’t already out there in multitudes? So I wrote for myself, scribbling illegible pages of notebooks and feverishly typing in my notes app at red lights. Accumulating pages upon pages of prose and free-form thoughts that I’d never return to except to harvest lines for lyrics occasionally. Songwriting felt like the only legitimate place for my words to live, everything else felt so masturbatory I was too embarrassed to share. I’ve been struggling with that lately, the feeling that somehow “because I want to” isn’t a good enough reason to do something. My bandmate said something that resonated one day, “no one is asking for us to do this” and yet here we are dedicating hours to our music because we want to, because it’s important to us. I realized that the motivation in your own desires is a valid enough reason to put something into the world and maybe if you’re lucky, it will resonate with others.

So all of that to say that I’ve decided to write a book, a small chapbook of some of my accumulated scribbles thoughts, and poems over the past five years. The decision was made during the lockdown of 2020 and it took me until 2021 to actually convince myself that it was important enough for me to do it. I work full time and whatever time I’m not working goes to the band which at this point is very much a second job, so fitting this into my life has been a challenge but I'm so glad I’m doing it. The past five years have held too much to fit into any book so I dug back into my notes and scratchings with the perspective that time has given me. I was able to see things more clearly and piece out what I wanted to remember, and from that, what I wanted to share. I had the fortune of seeing my trajectory of growth leading to the point where I realized I know nothing, even when I thought I knew everything.

The book will likely be finished by the end of this year and available for purchase in 2022.