Garret Schuelke
I got interested in writing back when I was in the sixth grade, but it was in 2006, after I graduated high school, that I consider my career as a writer to have really begun. I remember sometime shortly after I graduated sitting down in front of my computer, probably to write an opinion piece, thinking “All right, now it’s time to get serious.”
At the time I wanted to be a journalist—and had been studying to do so—which I think on one hand gave me the professional demeanor I have today (though it is somewhat different than it was a decade ago), but on the other hand this business outlook also deterred me from truly realizing and embracing why I liked writing in the first place. It took getting into poetry in 2007, giving up on trying to make a career in journalism in 2013, and finally regaining the courage to write fiction in 2014 that I realized the two main reasons why I write: I like to tell stories, and it makes me feel good.
There’s not much to say about the former reason: I’ve always enjoyed telling stories, fictional and otherwise, and entertaining people. Being that writing is the only field I consider myself talented in, it makes sense that it has always been my main outlet. I have started branching out into other ways to tell stories—such as YouTube videos, podcasting, and I would like to do live readings again—but writing will always remain the driving factor in all these artistic ventures.
The “feeling good” part came in 2014, when I started to refocus on fiction while recovering from an appendectomy. Writing fiction relieved my anxiety, made me feel more accomplished as a writer than journalism and poetry ever could, and made a “good” feeling flow throughout my being, which I can best describe as warmth and adrenaline. I’ve continued writing since the recovery, and the feeling returns every time I put down words, especially in times of stress.
Hemingway wrote in A Moveable Feast, “I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now.’”
One way or another, I too will always write, and I encourage other writers to keep on working.