Course Correction: I’m a Writer

Why writing?

10 years ago on an absolute whim which I like to refer to as a quarter-life crisis, I up and left Sonoma County and moved to San Francisco. I lived in a beautiful old tri-level Victorian built in the late 1800s. I absolutely fell in love with that house.

When the owners decided to embark on an exterior restoration of the old girl, I set off to document the process with my camera. One thing lead to another and before you knew it I was buried in the musky old stacks of the old records section of the library looking up the history of who built the house and what their lives were like.

I came to find that the house as well as the one next door were built by August Jungblut, a German-born billiards table manufacturer. After his shop was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, he moved it into the ground floor of the house.

In finding out more about the family and the rest of the characters that populated the street, a friend of my landlords who was a writer said, "hey, you could write a book about this!"

Seed...planted. 

The idea evolved over the next several years into pulling from my own family history of living in San Francisco. When I was young, I wrote a story about what it would have been like for my great grandmother to experience the earthquake at a young age (she was 8), and then have to live in the tent cities before being put in the back of a wagon and relocated to San Jose.

Then came the epiphany. The literal moment I woke up from a dream and I KNEW how I wanted to start my novel. I began writing that very day and kept at it. I became completely engrossed by first person accounts of the 1906 earthquake and fires. This novel went from something I wanted to do to something I needed to do. I felt it in my bones.

I hired a writing coach. I joined my local writers group. I participated in writing prompts and exercises. I made friends with other writers. I pitched to a big time agent just for fun, and she loved my work.

Not only was I excited about writing, but I was receiving some validation that I could actually succeed at it if I worked hard enough.

The Decision

Over the weekend I attended the San Francisco Writers Conference. I invested almost $1,000 in finding the answer to this very important question: Can I make a career out of writing?

The answer was yes.

It all came swirling into focus. I could see it. Marrying history and fiction and bringing stories of hardship and survival and strength to life. This is it, this is my calling. And I will do anything it takes to feed it and let it flourish. I can do this.

The Fallout

But what about the business? What about, you know, making a living and stuff? And the clients?

I more or less saw this coming. Maybe not the whole wanting to become a writer thing, but I knew that one day I would want to step away from building websites full time and have the ability to spend my time doing other things without having to worry about still making enough to put food on the table. That's why I built my business the way I did, where I could build a website in a day and not spend every waking moment making ends meet.

I'm grateful to have amazing clients. Ones who I will continue to support and look after. It pays to have a solid team in place to be able to do that.

I'm thankful I did that, because now I can take care of my little boy, focus on getting my house rebuilt, and spend every day working on my craft.

I'm a writer.

Let's do this.