Simon Says

Someone asked me this on formspring and I thought it would make a fun blog post, so here it goes.

It changed as I grew; the first job I wanted when I was younger was to be a writer/fisherman/country music singer, all at the same time.

I wanted to write science fiction on the same level as the books that were on my dad’s bookshelf. I used to take printer paper and fold it 4 ways. On one side I would have my dad write with a crayon my thoughts down; on the other side I would draw a picture that would match up to my stories.

They had riveting titles like “My sisters make me so mad.”

On top of this, I fell in love with my grandparent’s beach house down in Rockport, Texas. I figured this would be a great place to open a bate shop and live; while writing my award winning novels about my mean sisters.

Before we get into the third career, let me just say that for a kindergartner this was not a bad bit of imagination. It is not out of the realm of possibility for a writer to have a side job and that job is an inspiration for his work.

On top of all this, my parents had picked up a tiny guitar down in Laredo, Texas and given it to me. I would pull out my tape recorder and remove the “Return of the Jedi” tape that went along with the companion children’s read along book and would stick in a blank cassette.

I would then strum on the guitar and sing an awesome ballad; second only to the song I would play on my grandmothers electric organ that went to the tune of “Oh solo mio, I lost my tortill-o” (I swear to god this is a real thing, this happened).

My parents encouraged me any way they could. Somewhere there are several multi-platinum albums on cassette and maybe even a book for Oprah’s club.