Since 2009, I’ve worked toward earning a living by writing creative fiction. That’s the year I wrote my first story, “Collector.” The inspiration for that story was an especially vivid nightmare and it’s important because “Collector” started me down a road I hadn’t traveled in a while.
Besides, I needed a new way to make a living.
In June 1996, I surfed the web for the first time. It was an “aha” moment. I saw the entire internet from side to side and horizon to horizon, understood how it worked and why it would be important. Within six months, I quit my job as a commissioned salesperson to train and learn about the web.
I created a web site in 1998 and sold it in 2005 for over a million dollars. Half a million went to my partners, the rest to me. Then, I had a major stroke. There was an anti-phospho-lipid in my blood that makes it clot too easily. A clot traveled up my bloodstream and lodged in my brain. It cut off blood flow, oxygen, and the supply of other necessary nutrients.
Part of my brain died.
I was once paralyzed on the right side of my body, couldn’t speak clearly and needed to wear an eye-patch to see out of my good left eye, but today — no one would ever know. I can walk and talk, so I’m blessed. I spent everything I had to get better and worked hard. Some abilities are permanently gone — the quick exchange of ideas in conversation (the gift of gab), how to work on the web and some memories.
However…
I have a “new” brain with new pathways. I’m a new person with the memories of who I used to be. My need to write stories surged past my other capabilities and demanded attention. The journey to beome an author is taking longer than I thought, but from 2009 to 2012, I became a better writer — a tiny bit at a time.
I’ll get better still.
