Today is April 10, 2019.

It will be sixteen years this evening that I decided to become a writer, at least on the amateur level.

This is a special anniversary for my writing “career” because I was sixteen years old when I began. That means that now I have been writing for half of my life.

Though I have been writing for sixteen years, I still have yet to earn a single copper penny from doing it.

I still do it mostly for fun, but also to forward the values and truths I find important and to describe and inform about my various other interests.

Late last month and earlier this month I had tried a new medication, Vraylar, for various mental disorders of which I suffer. It made me completely stable but at the same time, disabled my ability to write. I was so stable that I was unable to be creative at all. It is true that most writers, visual artists, musicians, and all others who are creative either have some sort of mental disorder, use drugs and/or alcohol or have something else wrong with them. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, those flaws allow and sometimes compel creativity. So I’m back on my normal medication and this piece is the first thing I have written since.

What initially fueled my writing and ability to be creative other than the several factors experienced in the months prior to April of 2003, was that I was wrongfully medicated with a terrible drug known as Risperdal, but around late March or early April 2003, I was taken off all medications and had become very lively. That liveliness spawned much creativity both verbal (I came out with some funny and thought-provoking things in those days) and literary when I wrote my first story on the evening of April 10, 2003. This is what I am talking about when I mention medication and lack thereof.

That first story was about a teenage couple that was mowed down in a school shooting. What is scary though is that days after writing it there were at least two school shootings both in my home state of Louisiana. My peers seemed amazed but then soon forgot about it. There were various other times my writing has predicted things that came to pass. More than anything, it scares me when this happens but doesn’t stop me from being creative.

In 2003 and into 2004, I kept the stories I had written on a secret webpage, some of which was saved in the Internet Archives. Yes, I did feel quite flattered when I discovered that in 2017! In 2004 I began backing up my stories on a floppy disk, which I did until 2006 when I began using a USB flash drive.

For the second half of 2004 and through most of 2005, my writing became stagnant. This is because in June of 2004 I suffered a mental breakdown and was medicated with that same terrible medication from June of 2004 to January of 2006. When I was put on a better medication, Geodon, in 2006, I felt much like the same way I did in late March and early April of 2003. It was almost like being continuously high, just perfectly legal and medically necessary!

From January 2006 and onward, I had been writing and it kept on improving.

In June or July of 2007, I had tried a different medication and stayed on it until April of 2010, when I went back to Geodon, again there was that brightening effect and the high highs. I was working as a grocer, which would inspire my “Grocer and Writer” stories, over four years later. In September of 2011, I had quit that job and had lots of free time on my hands, a good bit of which I would dedicate to my writing. I was married at the time and for whatever reason, my now ex wife and some [not all] of my ex-in-laws despised the fact that I was a writer. I honestly think it is because the content of my writing did not and does not conform to the narrative and agenda they subscribe to. My ex wife and and I come from radically different cultures and that alone produced a lot of friction in our marriage. I guess, I married her because I was definitely attracted to her physically and at first she did treat me right, although from the get go she found ways to tear me down and I should have seen this as a red flag, but I didn’t. Hindsight is always 20/20 though.

From 2012 onward I had written some of my favorite stories, many of which are at least partially available on my blog.

I had also begun to start writing personal reflections, essays and articles in addition to my works of fiction.

In the late Summer of 2015, I had tried a drug for my various mental disorders known as Latuda. It was like Risperdal, minus the side effects. I only stayed on it for a day or two, then went back to Geodon. Also in 2015, I was steadily working on my “Grocer and Writer” stories which I had begun on June 30, 2014.

By 2016, I had realized that a good bit of people were offended by those “Grocer and Writer” stories so I began to write off shoots of them that talk the decent values presented in them, but had taken out most of the controversy.

My now ex wife still hated these off shoots and just about anything else I would write.

On October 6, 2016, a month after the untimely death of a fellow, young aspiring writer, I launched my blog. I had realized that I am still alive and I have a gift that needs to be shared with others. I would say that my readers do indeed appreciate what I do and I hold their appreciation in high regard!

Throughout 2017, I continued writing off shoots to my “Grocer and Writer” stories as well as some non fiction pieces while my marriage was beginning to fall apart.

I left my now ex wife on January 18/19, 2018 and the divorce was granted on October 11, 2018.

Being back on Geodon from Vraylar has allowed my creativity to slowly come back and I cannot wait until it is fully manifested once again.

I cannot wait to see what I will write in the next sixteen years!

Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you, the reader, have been informed and maybe even entertained…