I knew from a very young age that I wanted to do something with my life that would live on when I kicked the proverbial bucket. It wasn’t until I reached high school that I realized something could come between me and my by-proxy-immortally. I’m incredibly lazy. I’m talking about the kind of lazy that makes people want to cry. Couch potato doesn’t do me justice. If you look up sloth on Google instead of a picture of a cute jungle animal my smug mug will be there. That kind of lazy.

After this horrifying epiphany I found myself in quite the pickle. All the greats from yesteryear were not lazy. They worked and sweated and did everything I try to avoid. Fantastic. The search was on to find someway to by-pass this and move on to the goal at hand. Such things as rocket scientist, quantum physicist, astronaut, doctor, anything to do with the military and anything that required large amounts of time and effort was not an option. This ruled out just about every type of history making career I could think of, save two. I could become a martyr and die young—and possibly quiet painfully—for a cause I believe strongly in, or I could become a writer and spend my days in European cafés, drinking coffee and conversing with other intellects.

I quickly ruled out martyr for two simple reasons. The first being a lack of a cause worth dying for. There was no Inquisition chasing witches and the only way I was Crusading to the Holy Land was by joining the military—not an option. The second being that dying young seemed slightly self-defeating. There was only one viable option left: writer.
My head filled with thoughts of artsy cafés, leather bound journals and big, big royalty checks. Why not have a little fortune to go with the fame? It seemed like the perfect choice. Just sit down, scribble out some chapters and call it a day. Looking back now, I can almost laugh at my naivety. Almost. I knew nothing. I still know next to nothing.
Syntax, style, diction, pacing, sentence structure, expression, meaning, voice. All the things that make for good writing. Not just knowing these things but understanding them and using them. Taking what you want to say, because you MUST have something to say, and presenting it to an audience. Taking a blank page and turning it into a universe. Defeating armies with every sentence and conquering empires in a single paragraph. Building worlds out of words. Suddenly quantum physics doesn’t sound so difficult.
I could have given up. It seems the natural choice. I am a self-proclaimed quitter; I am admittedly lazy. Yet, sometimes something gets its teeth into you and doesn’t spit you out again—no matter how much you sit around wishing it would.