When Do You Know?

When exactly do you know or come to realize that you are doing exactly what you were meant to be doing in life? Is it an instantaneous thing or is it a slow process that we don't even take notice of until the watershed moment occurs and leaps out at us?

I've always fancied myself as a writer and creator. (and that's another good question, are you a writer when you write, or are you a writer when you are recognized for your writing?)

So back to my ramblings..I always considered myself a writer. Even as I made my own comic books as a kid and my artwork wasn't all that great, I looked forward to the writing aspect and felt that would save whatever story I was trying to tell at the time. I went the screenplay route at first, but after years of receiving one paragraph responses thanking me for my submission (or even worse, no replies at all), I began to lose hope. In 2000 I turned my creative energies to producing a number of indie films and projects, none of which got any further than the shooting stage, (something I attribute to the minds and desires of the people I was around at the time, and turned away from writing at that point.

I think I still have outlines for about 20 projects of all genres somewhere in my home, and when the Distant Battlefield franchise becomes successful, I plan on introducing these to the world as well.

Anyway, I was still spinning my wheels mentally around 2007 or so when my lower intestines sent me to Woodhull Hospital for a two month vacation from the world. As I lay in the hospital bed after the initial surgery, I took the time to do a quick reassessment. I was still alive, still on this planet, and when I get out of the hospital I will eventually have to return to the world...as what?

Am I to be a 9 to 5 humanoid for the rest of my life? is that all my life is?
Will I spend another few years of my existence shooting music videos for wanna be rappers and putting in hour after empty hour on someone else's indie project, making phone calls, dealing with actors and manning lights?

what exactly am I going to do now?

The only thing in my life that ever spoke to me was writing and creating. Stories, short stories, screenplays. If i remember the old saying, a person is what they do, not what they say. If all I ever did was talk about writing but never wrote anything, then I'm not a damn writer. Very simple.

I saw no labor in writing A Distant Battlefield. It was a love. It was spending time with a host of characters and having them play off each other. It was creating a universe which comprised 440 pages, and I enjoyed every single page.

Even months after the first installment was written, I think about the characters and the story every damn day. My mental editor is still going over pages and phrases and sequences, wholly satisfied with what we have done, but still believing we could say and do it better.

Part two is in outline form, and is more an array of thoughts and sequences than an actual order of events. But that's OK. That rough outline is the clay from which the second book will be sculpted, and I'm ready to get in there even now.

I'm about a good month away from introducing you guys to what I have created. Hope you like what I have presented to you, hope you understand what message I am trying to convey.

I truly look forward to the conversations I will have with all of you in regards to what I wrote and what my thought process was like. Hope to meet alot of you in person. If not, drop me a line or send an email. I will gladly write you back.
After all, I am a writer.