So today is March 30, 2024, and this is the 10-year anniversary of this website, which also marks 10 years since I started taking writing seriously. By which I mean: writing as a profession. When I started out, I was 13 years old, in middle school, and determined to write the scariest, spine-tingling stories possible. 10 years on, almost everything has changed, I’ve learned a lot, and I still prefer to use 10 versus ten when writing. (Sorry, editors.)

In the coming weeks, I’ll be re-sharing some of my favorite blog posts and notable moments through social media channels, but for today I want to talk about what I’ve learned over the last decade. What I’ve accomplished, what I’m aiming for next.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve grown a lot (look at the glow-up between 2013 and now…) as I made more mistakes than I care to admit. But so much of my learning process has been trial and error, so after all those errors, at least I can say I learned something!

2013-2018: Trial and (Lots of) Error

Here’s how this will work. I’ll start with what I did and transition into what I’ve learned. There are 3 sections marked by significant events which changed the way I write and live.

So what did I do, first? I started writing short stories. As Trees Turned Away was a collection of scary short stories, each titled with a letter of the alphabet, so I went from A to Z. Some were short, others long, ranging between supernatural and gritty. Some were even connected, forming a longer story if you read them back-to-back. Mostly, though, it was a mess. A fun mess! But still. There’s a reason you can’t buy it anymore. (Although, if you’re willing to reach out and also pay for shipping, maybe…)

I wrote a two-book series starting with She. Also unpublished. I wrote a bunch of short novellas, mostly unavailable now, some never finished in the first place. I tried my hand with fantasy and literary fiction while I churned through middle school and high school. From this earliest section of my writing career, only a few things remain. My Abigail, for starters, and Until We Burn are both traditional horror novels. The latter is slightly psychedelic horror, which I feel pulled to still, dealing with heavy themes and ambiguous endings.

WHAT I LEARNED

In this early phase, I learned that you probably shouldn’t publish anything until you’re old enough to drive, but I also learned so much about the publishing process which set me up well for the future. I was constantly reading online about how to get published, how to market your novel, and where to find readers. I was reading fiction all the time as well as non-fiction books about writing craft. Balancing this fun stuff with the less-fun reality of becoming an adult and choosing a career and learning to self-regulate my emotions. It was chaotic.

Most of all, I learned that writing and art can be therapeutic. Without writing, without creating, I wouldn’t be who I am today. I might not be at all. I decided that even if nobody else ever read my books, they were art, and I made them, and I should feel proud of that.

Yes, I unpublished some, and I clearly don’t feel proud about those, but each book and story is a tentpole moment in my life. When I read them, I’m visiting an older version of myself. I’m talking with him. It’s almost like a time capsule or a portal. We’ve come a long way. Writing has been a liferaft, and I think art can be that for everybody.

2019-2020: Grief and Growing Up

So what changed? Why is 2019-2020 set aside from the last section? Lots of reasons.

To start, my grandpa died. I was already a bit traumatized from other events in high school, other losses and life-altering drops, and so when he tragically and unexpectedly passed away in the fall of 2018 it tore my world apart. I stayed with my grandma for months in their big house in the country, driving almost an hour to school every day. I read and obsessed over The Little Stranger. I did not write.

This was my senior year of high school. I was supposed to be focused on my future career and visiting colleges and enjoying the freedom of a driver’s license. I did those things to a degree, but I also grappled for the first time with grief. And loss. Not being enough. Sleep deprivation. Self-medication. It was a world I’d never known, and it felt like everything was changed and different forever. Never going back. I did not write.

Toward the end of the school year, in late March only 5 years ago, I moved back into my mom’s house. My grandma and I are closer than ever because of those six months we spent together. Last year, I chose her big, quiet house in the country as a very prominent setting in The Misery House and the sequels following the Woods family. (More on those books in the next section.) And still, 5 years ago today, I did not write.

Summer 2019. I had graduated. I was choosing a college and I knew I wanted to become a high-school English teacher. My grandpa taught at a high school for decades. My mom and grandma were both educators. I wanted to teach and change lives. It just made sense.

With that weight of decision off my shoulder, I finally began to process the grief and unfathomable change of the last two years. I wrote Home, a metaphysical thriller about loss and love and where we’re all headed. It’s a strange novella, full of emotion and foggy visions, but I’m still very proud of it today.

And then something arguably crazier happened in 2020. At this point, I was wrapping up my freshman year of college. I’d grown a lot at Hanover College already and couldn’t wait for the next few years. I loved my classes and my new friends. Then, March 2020, Covid swept down like a wave with no warning.

When the world shut down, I had a lot of time to myself. I was lucky enough to still have a job landscaping, and the grass did not shut down. I’m very fortunate and blessed and even lucky for how things worked out personally during Covid, and my heart aches for anyone affected by it worse. I was able to use the time to work on myself and grow, but the unimaginable events of 2020 still touched me deeply.

I took a few months off from posting on here. I wrote Everything, Somewhere, and processed the realization that I was going to leave my hometown (Madison, Indiana) in a few short years. Moving out of my mom’s house. Moving away from my siblings. I was preparing myself for the seismic shift in reality that comes with adulthood.

Everything, Somewhere is the most personal book I’ve ever written. It’s about substance abuse and depression and mental health. It’s about Madison, my forever hometown. It’s about growing up. It also sold over 500 copies in the first month, which is the first time I ever had a real “hit” as an author. I met with book clubs. I went on the radio. I had local events.

What I learned

What I learned from 2019 to 2020 can’t be summed up in a single sentence. I learned what everyone does at some point in life as your brain grows and your personality settles and your emotions start to work for you instead of against you.

I learned that everyone has a story and every story matters. I learned to treat other people like humans. Every one of them. I don’t care if they grew up in Florida or Haiti or Mexico or Palestine. Either side of any border. Every person is worth caring for, and those of us who have more –whether that’s money, time, or empathy– have a calling to give it all away.

So give it all away, don’t turn them away, and listen to other people’s stories. More than anything, don’t be afraid to share your own.

2021-2023: The Pieces Fit Together

This last section of my life has been the most productive, but not in terms of writing. Since July of 2022, I’ve been teaching 9th-grade English. In only two years, I’ve had over 300 students. Hardworking, persevering, inspiring students. I know that kids these days get a bad rep, but the young people I see daily have been through so much. More than I could ever imagine. They’re growing in an unstable, uncertain world, and I feel so strongly for them. I get to know them and connect with them. I’m blessed to stand beside them.

On breaks from school, I’ve been writing a lot of different things. The Misery House and it’s sequel The Silent Forest have taken the bulk of my attention. I’m also trying to read more and fill in some of the literary gaps. There are roughly seven manuscripts mostly-finished in my Google Drive, and I don’t know what to do with them!

On a human level, I have a handful of new friends. I went to a writing conference in Indianapolis with my great friend Evan Myers (check out his Amazon page) who also writes amazing books and teaches amazing kids at the same school as me. We’ve only known each for about a year-and-a-half, but he’s an amazing guy. His wife and him teach at the same school as me. They’re the best people. I’m so lucky to know them, and I have no idea how it worked out so well.

And I guess Evan is a great example of what this latest slice of life has taught me. From my Hanover College friends and our graduation in 2023 to my coworkers and close work friends, even my brothers who are growing up and becoming themselves, it struck me recently that everybody is together. I’m not sure how I found my way into these people’s lives. It feels like chance, and that idea terrifies me, but they’re here now, and I’m so happy they are.

What I learned

I’ve been stuck on a train of thought ever since Covid, really, and it’s become more solidified in recent years. I’m pretty sure my next big book project is going to tackle this idea, roughly. But here it is:

Considering cell phones, AI, climate change, diseases, depression, what really matters? At the end of the day, how do we derive meaning from everyday life?

Some people would say art, right. And I don’t hate that idea, but art seems more like a bandaid than anything else. I love music, movies, books, artwork, any kind of creative work, but it’s not a permanent solution.

Some might say there is no meaning if they want to be full-on nihilistic. Some might say religion. Or charity or food or vacations to England. (Did that last week. Pretty amazing, honestly.) But I think there’s a common denominator to all of those things and to everything meaningful and that is…

Shared experiences. Shared human experiences. It can be a vacation. It can be hanging out in Indianapolis at a local bar with Evan Myers before a writing conference. It can be going through four years of college with the same group of friends and spending hours upon hours outside. It can be anything.

But I think meaning comes from other people and small moments you might otherwise forget. And that, I believe, is where art comes from. The small moments. The connections. So I’m trying to savor those and I’m trying to imbue my novels with the same feeling. Meaning.