A Writer Must Write or Following Your Dreams

When I was younger, I thought I would be an engineer because that's what my Old Man was. And I seemed perfect for it, too. I had an interest in science and I was very good in math. They were my favorite subjects in primary school while history and English weren't. I did enjoy history and social studies, but English... I didn't get it. Why was I studying the language I spoke?

When I started high school, things seemed to be leading even more in that direction as my high school counselor offered me the chance to take honors science and math. Instead, I chose to take Honors English because how hard could it be? And when I took Latin, I suddenly learned what my English teachers had been trying to teach me. But the turning point came when I was a Sophomore: I had my first real run-in with creative writing when my teacher Mrs. Ayrault had us work on a number of creative writing projects that included short story and poetry. That's when I discovered that I could write, but I was still really good in math and science.

Mr. Wagner, my Sophomore Biology teacher, was shocked to discover that despite the fact that I didn't like Biology, I was still acing it and told me I should've been in Honors Biology when I was a Freshman. Misters Tocco and Szuminski, my math teachers for both Freshman and Sophomore years, were also impressed with my skill. Mr. Tocco made me "Checker" of the class, and after more Checkers were added, I was still the Checker of the Checkers. When I was a Sophomore, Mr. Szuminski had devised a formula that calculated how we had to do on the final in order to keep our current grade and what we would get in the class if we didn't take the final. He then called us up to the podium in order of highest to lowest grades. I was in the group of the A's and he had us line up around him in descending order--I was the left most one. (Meaning I was the best.) In order to keep my A, I only had to get a 64%, and if I didn't take the final at all, I would've gotten a B. (I took the final anyway and even did the extra credit question.)

But when Notre Dame was closed and I started attending Bishop Foley, things changed. My grades in science slipped a little in Chemistry and Physics, and when I tempted the fates by taking Honors Trig Junior year, I almost failed the class. I took regular Pre-Calc in Senior year and kicked its shit in. But I also became a history buff Junior year and continued taking Honors English courses. I struggled a little at first because BF had higher expectations, but I still took AP English as a Senior and took the AP test passing with a 3 out of 5. Not the most impressive victory, but considering I forgot some of the names of characters for my essay portion, it was actually really impressive.

Bishop Foley also had a literary/art publication called Rhapsody that I joined both years and submitted work to. In my Senior year, I was Editor-in-Chief, a position, that if I'm honest, I didn't deserve. But I also took Creative Writing Senior year--that's where it became abundantly clear to me that I had a gift and that people were impressed. I won an award for being the best, and my Creative Writing teacher, Mrs. Sienkiewicz, who was also the faculty moderator for the school paper, told me that if she had known a student of my skill had existed, she would've hunted me down and made me write for the paper. Talk about a feather in your cap!

But not everyone was enthused to hear about my success in writing. Senior year our counselors called us into one-on-one meetings to ask what we planned to do with our futures. When I told my counselor, a woman that I was already at odds with, that I wanted to be a writer, she told me "That's really starving artist" something or other. I didn't listen obviously. But when I started at Macomb Community College, I double majored in English and Math because I wanted to capitalize on both of my primary skills. But! As time went on and I continued to Wayne State University, I focused on English and the pull to be a writer felt stronger with each passing day.

But college wasn't all that good to me and I still question whether or not I should've gone. Just six months after graduation I felt lied to and cheated. Not just because I bought into the idea that having a degree would make things easier for me, but also because I had accumulated a load of debt and I had no desire to work a regular 9-5 five days a week for the next 40 to 50 years of my life. When I got into college, I learned how liberating it was to be an adult, but because I had the safety net of my parents which included not making me get a job so long as I was in school, I didn't learn any of the responsibilities of being an adult. I didn't learn the value of time and pissed away a lot of it. Time that I could've used to write. And now, I'm 28 facing a high school reunion in November and I don't have much to say for myself. Which is one of the reasons why I'm so gung ho to publish shit left and right so that I can brag about something. But that's not what's important here.

Last night, my Old Man and I were watching Last Man Standing on the Hallmark channel. It's that Tim Allen comedy that was just cancelled. Anyway, the character Eve, played by Kaitlyn Dever, who is Tim Allen's youngest daughter on the show, a few episodes previous, was rejected by West Point and had hit a low point in her life. Feeling lost and confused, she settled on music and started writing songs. In the episode we saw, she performed a piece solo and brought the house down, but she told Allen's character that the house's manager said she sucked. After figuring out that the house's manager had said the opposite, Allen confronted Dever. Dever posed the rhetorical question of why would she lie about being told that she was good. Allen suggested that it was because music was very important to her and she was afraid of failing, and that the failure she felt at being rejected from West Point would be all the worse with music. But Allen told her that she only lives once and that life is too short not to pursue her dreams and so, she should run directly at whatever scares her the most.

I took it to heart because being a self-publishing author is scary. But, my Old Man had a different take on it. He said that he wouldn't have told her that because being successful in music is more about luck and politics than it is about skill, and that's no way to live. I had always had the feeling that my parents didn't believe in me, but that pretty much confirmed it. A few weeks when I told him I needed to cash a few savings bonds to give myself room to breathe to think about a few things, he laughed maniacally (also sarcastically), and said "You'll be working at a pet store yet." (I'm a certified dog trainer.) But the derision was clear. So, I wasn't shocked to hear him say that he wouldn't advise a kid to pursue music.

So, what then? Well, despite what my parents think, I'm not going to give up. In the past few years, especially the last couple (after college), I've learned what I want most and I've learned what's really important to me. I've decided I'm going to pursue everything I want which includes being a writer. (It also includes being every girl's wet dream, so that I can find the girl who's my wet dream.)

But I'm not just going to be any writer, I'm going to be big. I'm going to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Stephen King, JK Rowling, and Shakespeare. I'm Bryan C. Laesch, the Writer. But if I had any advice to any writers just starting out, it's that a writer must write--that must become your creed. Don't waste your time. Write as often as you can, especially if you have a great safety net. Never stop moving forward.

Keep writing, my friends.