Writers Write

Two Simple Words My Late Father Told Me

My late father was a writer. An author, technically, but the primary way that he won bread for our family, and well, I may add, was by writing. He authored many of what I consider “real books.” Not books like the ones that I intend to write, self-published eBooks on Amazon, but books that you could hold in your hands and would be available for check out at most public libraries or on the shelves of Barnes & Noble, Borders, Crown Books, and numerous other long-gone retailers.

I have dozens of them on bookshelves throughout our house.

I would like to be a writer, as well, and could theoretically be considered one already. Not one who has sold millions of books, like my father has (nearly ten years after his death, his books still sell, but not nearly as much as they once did), or articles for print magazines, like he wrote in his early years. I could not command a thousand dollars to appear for a speaking engagement like he did for years.

No, I would be considered a writer by my father were he alive simply by having written an 800-plus page tome detailing my struggles as a young, idealistic probation officer in The P.O., a self-published eBook that I wrote many years ago.

The above is an affiliate link. Although this is only my first story in this publication, I will occasionally include the link to the above eBook. It is pertinent to my adulthood, having spent over seven years as a Probation Officer right out of college and another seven or so writing it.

Throughout the years when I toiled for the Cook (or Crook as I prefer to think of it) County Adult Probation Department, I would tell my father and the rest of my family stories about my experiences in what was and remains one of the most poorly-run, bureaucratic, politically-motivated departments in the country, let alone the county. Add to that an unending stream of poorly educated minority clients with little to no future prospects, nearly all of whom come from broken families and live in areas rife with crime, low-performing schools, and substandard housing. There you have it: hundreds of probation officers pushing paper around about thousands of hopeless clients.

My father would urge me to write about it just as self-publishing became a thing. Having witnessed first-hand how hard he worked, I told him that I did not wish to become an author like him. I did not feel like a self-starter and doubted that I could dedicate myself to writing for hours every day and night as he did. I would like to have become one now, but back then, I still had future riches from less work in mind. Kind of like my younger brother does now.

Much as he urged me to run at least a little bit every single day throughout my high school years when I was one of the better performers on both the track and cross-country teams, my father urged me for years to do some writing every day if I could. Knowing that the words would begin flowing like a waterfall once I started, I occasionally heeded his advice. I would find myself having written ten or twenty pages a few hours later.

Since self-publishing the P.O. quite a few years ago, I have only made a few hundred dollars from my efforts. When I first published it, it would sell a few copies, and I would find Amazon deposits of twenty or thirty dollars in my account every month. Throughout the 2010s, I probably only made a few dollars per month from it and sold zero copies. I get paid a bit because most Kindle customers are Amazon Prime members, as my family is and you likely are, and they can read the book for “free.” I receive payment based on the number of pages read, much like Medium now pays based upon time spent reading articles.

Which brings me to my point.

When I told my father that I was too burned out from doing the probation job while simultaneously working my way through graduate school and then becoming a father at the age of twenty-seven, he told me simply that writers write.

Just as carpenters hammer nails, plumbers work with pipes, most teachers teach something, and economic developers such as myself work with businesses, investors, property owners, and public officials, writers write. They write words, whether it is Stephen King or James Patterson writing an instant best-seller, a millennial money blogger like Mr. Money Mustache or Millennial Money writing a post read by millions of followers, a newspaper reporter on deadline, or a scriptwriter working on a sitcom, writers write.

I am writing this now and plan to write many more compelling posts that readers like you can both relate to and learn something from. Seeing as how I have not yet realized my first hundred-dollar month from this platform, you need not worry about all my stories becoming about how much I make by doing it.

Words come easy to me and always have. I have many more topics that I wish to share and expound upon than hours to work on them. As you read further stories by me, you will come to learn that, in addition to a highly-demanding full-time position that requires my attendance at several night meetings per month (including this coming Monday night), I am a very diligent father and a dog owner. However, I hate to refer to my sweet baby as a dog. Many times, she is more like our favored child than a pet. Still, I mention her because when the weather in my part of the world improves, I would prefer to take her for outings, long walks through our neighborhood, and visits with our crazy dog lady friend than sitting around doing what us writers do.