Oh yes. It will be mine.

What the devil am I talking about?

Being a writer. It’s not an easy thing to do. I mean, having a degree is one thing, but for the most part, that is never enough. You have to build your way up.

That’s not a bad thing, though. I mean it is labour-intensive, but that’s part of the fun, right?

No?

Let me start over:
I’ve always loved writing. I’ve enjoyed doing it since I was a wee one watching cartoons. Cartoons were able to express what I wanted to see. Not everyone can afford big-budget movies or TV shows to allow wild imaginations and still execute it properly.

Cartoons could do what real-life could not. Expand.
I grew up with Transformers, X-Men, Exo Squad, Eek the Cat and so on. Needless to say, my imagination was wild.

Then you throw in comics. My first comic was X-Men #36 from 1994. Since then, I’ve kind of grown from there. We were probably traveling to Lindsay, Ontario, and I always liked having something to look at on the car ride up. Turns out this one featured Sabretooth as being a part of the X-Men’s team – so that threw me for a loop.

I digress. . .
My imagination as a child was booming. Then you throw Star Wars into the mix and suddenly my mind wouldn’t stop. I became the weird kid at school because I was too involved in things too “childish” for others.

My first story was about time-traveling Dinosaurs attacking Earth. Of course, I was in probably grade four at the time. Maybe. Then in my late grade-school years, I remember that I started writing a Star Wars book – entirely unaware that the Expanded Universe was considered Star Wars canon! Boy, was I in for a shock.

Following in grade nine and ten, I was accused of plagiarism in two of my short stories – one a science-fiction, the other a regular fiction – because it was something entirely different than how I was in class – which was being an over-excited-yet-lazy teenager.

It really was not until I was accused of plagiarizing that I figured I could make writing a professional thing.

I then followed up with meeting people on the good old Much Music message boards (R.I.P.) and writing for a Toronto-based webzine for heavy metal music. I got to interview some gnarly musicians and had my work published. Following that, I wrote for my University’s newspaper for the first year – followed by a slump of me trying to figure out what I wanted to do with school. It wasn’t until my final year did I realize I should smarten my act up and actually start putting words to a page.

At my old job, I could stand around for hours without having customers. I began to write on scrap paper when I could behind the counter – and suddenly I had a chapter of something! I couldn’t believe it. On a roll, I ended up buying a small book to write in while in class (as English and Writing lectures became a great inspirational session – studying came last). Then I suddenly started writing a whole different genre from my first story. I had two going!

Throughout my childhood, I’ve always followed the X-Men. I hadn’t always bought their comics, but I knew these characters because I grew up with them. It wasn’t until I purchased a few rare comics in my youth, did I really start wanting to follow them.

After a few years I began a lovely pull-list around the time of Marvel’s Secret Invasion storyline and was hooked since.

It came to me that I loved comics because they were my cartoons. They were what I could use to expand my imagination, yet still tell a story. They were my bread and butter.

Now to only get started on it.
What about motivation?

Now back to the beginning of this blog. It’s labour-intensive.
How am I motivated?
Aside from being able to meet Leonard Kirk (yes, I linked my last blog), and finding a hometown hero so-to-speak, there are Indie comics which have taken off.

I mean, sure you’ve heard of X-Men, Spider-Man, Batman, et al.
But did you know of Kick-Ass, the Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot, Green Hornet, Akira, The Tick, Transformers, Gi*Joe, and so on were all comics first? (Transformers released their comic the same month the TV series started).
If you answered no to at least one of these, you have to know that they took off because people took interest.

Here are some figures of Indie comic book sales up-to-date (July 2010), and tell me that it’s not possible to make this happen.

Sure, it will take a lot of work. Sure, it’ll be labour-intensive. But as I’ve sort of hinted at – my plagiarism, my laziness, whatever you want to call it – it’s not work to me. It’s just me using my imagination.

By the way, over 100 views in less than two days is incredible. Thanks for all the support thus far, folks!

Keep on Space Truckin’.