So this happened…

“What are you wasting your time on that shit for? It’s never going to amount to anything.”

It was a lifetime ago. I was a different person. One who wanted someone to be proud of him for being able to accomplish…something. I wasn’t my father. I didn’t want to hunt, a fact that disappointed him greatly. I didn’t want to build things. I hated the idea of being alone with him. There had been enough times that I already knew where it would lead. So yeah, I wanted to do something that was uniquely me, but still something he’d be able to look at and say, “My kid did this!” I didn’t think it was asking too much.

I wrote a story. About 138 pages handwritten (because we didn’t have computers in the stone age) about a monster that devoured a lot of kids in my school (don’t ask, long story). I was so freaking proud of it. It wasn’t the first thing I wrote, but it was definitely the first thing I could show someone else. I handed him my story, waiting with bated breath for him to say something. His words cut me because they told me I failed again. I would never amount to anything in his eyes. At fourteen years old, I knew that I’d never be someone he could be proud of.

So flash forward a few decades. I got a story published. 500 Miles was written for MLR Press. I never expected it to go anywhere because I had zero confidence in my ability to write. I would see the big names: Laura Harner, Tom Webb, K.C. Wells, SJD Peterson, Eden Winters, and many others and tell myself I didn’t belong in that group. Because I was wasting my time on that shit and it was never going to amount to anything. I expected the rejection letter for it and wasn’t kidding myself that it would come.

Then Kris Jacen messaged me and told me that she was sending me a contract. My very first. And I hesitantly signed on the dotted e-line. 500 Miles was really going to be published.

At the end of this year, I got an e-mail from Goodreads telling me that my story had been nominated for TWO awards. Win, lose, or draw, I was nominated. SOMEONE was pleased with my work. Suddenly I realized. It didn’t matter if my father would ever be proud of what I do.  My friends are proud of it. The reviews have shown I don’t totally suck at what I’ve wanted to do since I was a scared fourteen year old boy who just needed someone to be proud of him.

So Dad? See those awards up there? I earned them. And I’m fucking proud of it.