And Here We Are (A Process Blog)

In 2008, my life changed forever.

If you’d told me this was what I’d be walking into back then, I would’ve bet any amount that you were full of it. But here it was.

I walked into the Barnes & Noble in Jefferson City, Missouri and was immediately confronted by a brand-new display. It was a full-blast, cardboard cutout featuring a book that had recently cracked several bestseller lists. The book’s title had been recreated in a gorgeous, curved design that fit the tone of the story. Beneath that, in smaller print, were a few glowing reviews by famous critics. Then, to the left, was a photo of the author, proudly holding a copy of her novel.

Only the thing was, she hadn’t written that book.

She hadn’t even provided an outline.

She’d come to me with an idea, and three weeks later, I presented her with her novel. I’d never expected it to come back to me like this. I wasn’t mad at her. I’m still not. I’m actually happy for her success. She had been a pleasure to work with, and she’d paid on time. I knew what it meant to be a ghostwriter; I did the work, the client got the reward. But I’d never envisioned that the reward would be so life-changing.

In hindsight, that hit me a lot harder than I let on. But I walked away energized; I had what it took to write an international bestseller. There was the proof, looking me, mocking me, right in the face. And I would get to work on writing my own bestseller…tomorrow.

I couldn’t tell you what froze me up. Lack of confidence? Check. Imposter syndrome thoroughly planted and harvested in my youth by a domineering father? Oh, I had that in spades. Thinking I had all the time in the world? Yup, had a lot of that too. I would tell you that I worked low-effort jobs like security so I could write on the clock, but the truth is, I would just watch DragonBall or something all night. Because I had all the time in the world. The gift was there, I could use it any time I wanted.

Except I didn’t. I published a smattering of items over the years, but nothing reached the level of success that book did. I didn’t want to admit it then, but it was really demoralizing. Why could I write gold for someone else, but not me?

Because I could hide behind a client name if the work went bad, which I expected it to do. When it’s my name on it, there’s no hiding.

A few years ago, I began writing and publishing without thinking much of it. I cancelled myself on the only full book I ever published because I let one bad review freak me out.

Still, I got lucky enough last year to completely work from home writing. Only to find out that I wasn’t ready. I took it for granted, I often didn’t take it seriously enough, and worse, after so many years of trying and failing, I felt entitled to this.

To which God was like “Oh, really?” And, of course, while my wife and I were on vacation, the job dried up. If I could retract my behavior while working that job, I swear to you, I would. Because it led me to El Cortez Hotel and Casino in downtown Las Vegas.

When I took the job, I figured it would be another typical security gig. It was working in a casino, so I was going to learn some new things, but that was a bonus. I had no idea how brutal that job would be.

In my nine months at El Cortez, I encountered upper management that absolutely hated us. They didn’t care about the high turnover, or that one of their managers was hated by almost everyone around him, or whether or not the job was even safe. So long as they had bodies in uniform, doing what they said, when they said, that was all that mattered. People were forced onto other shifts, bullied into staying over or being flat-out lied to about pay, these were all normal behaviors here. You were expected to make this job the center of your life. One person I knew had to make the food bank part of their weekly errands. Another one had to purchase all of their own equipment. Security is only provided shirts; all other equipment must come out of the employees pocket, and as I left, this was becoming mandatory.

I’ve had hundreds of days jobs in my life. This was the only one that radicalized me. It took such a toll on me and my marriage that we finally arranged for me to leave on July 27th, but my relationship with one of my supervisors had become so toxic that I left a couple of days early. We weren’t far from throwing hands.

And here we are.

About two months back, I started writing a thousand words every day, or at least five days per week. I haven’t deviated from this. I’ve written several shorts in the same universe and plan to start publishing in 2025. I do not know how to write books. I haven’t been a big reader of fiction since I was a child, so my lengthy prose tends to read like a documentary. That hasn’t stopped me from assembling a book in the background. It’s my best effort, and it won’t be loved by everyone. It might not even be loved by any. But I don’t write and publish for the pay. I do this because this is how I make sense of the world, and not doing this makes me and people around me crazy.

Life is hard. We each choose our own kind of hard. I prefer the hard that has me self-employed, doing something I love, then ever working for something like El Cortez again.

Welcome to my process series. Thanks for reading.