This year marks the 10-year anniversary of when I started my very first book, Junkland, the first book in The Hoarding series. I really can’t believe it’s been a decade. So much has happened. My writing has changed. I have changed. My life has changed. And all because I decided one day to go on a crazy adventure of writing a book. I always wondered where I would be in 10 years with my writing business, and now that it’s finally here, it has been nothing but the best decision I’ve ever made.
Over these next few newsletters, I’m going to dive deep into my reflection on my writing journey over the last decade. And I just wanted to take this moment to thank you. Because without your support, none of this would have happened. Enjoy the story!
Ten years ago, I set out on a journey that would change my life.
Fluorescent lights shined down on me as I suffered away in my cubicle. But this time, the lights didn’t feel as draining. I had just seen Aladdin on Broadway with my family in January 2016, and inspiration flooded through me. It was a feeling I had never felt so strongly before.
Aladdin had always been my favorite story growing up, and at twenty-four years old, I felt Aladdin’s struggle more than ever. He, too, longed for a better life. I had always loved writing. So without thinking, I opened my phone and began to write.
I had just graduated college with both an engineering and math degree. I moved to the DC area with all my college friends. We were all thrilled to enter the real world and live happily-ever-after lives, as we had been promised. But one by one, we all fell into the quarter-life crisis. The “real world” was not as we had envisioned. Friends broke down crying. Roommates were unsure of what to do with their lives. The good jobs we had been fortunate to receive quickly turned sour and lifeless.
Brokenhearted, unfulfilled with my current job, and feeling like an outsider in the city I had just moved to, I felt trapped and alone. I was hit with a hard question: Well, if not this, then what?
I later learned how difficult this question really is.
Cue the quarter-life crisis.
I began to go down a rabbit hole of thinking, trying to figure out what really filled me with happiness. I recalled all the fantasy books I wrote in elementary school for class, spending my free time reading, riding my bike to the local bookstore, writing songs and poetry, taking a creative writing class in college for fun, and even the short story filled with plot holes that gave me a headache that I had attempted to write just a few months earlier. The answer seemed clear:
I wanted to write.
But writing isn’t a job. It can’t make you money. That’s just something kids say when they tell people what they want to be when they grow up, and everyone giggles and laughs.
So I held back, further coiling up in my toxic corner, following the path like everyone else. But that didn’t stop the urge to write from boiling within.
Until I saw Aladdin on Broadway in NYC, and it became clear as day that I needed to write. To just do it.
But what do I even write about?
When I returned to my life in DC with this new inspiration flooding through me, I passed an emergency light in a stairwell I used every day. I had passed this emergency light before, but that day, it changed my life.
Without hesitating, I took a picture. I sat down and looked at it. I saw two bulgy lightbulb eyes and a square body. He reminded me of a Disney character (Can you guess who?). This character felt alive, and I knew this would be the character in the story I had to write.
I pulled out my phone and began to write an outline in my Notes app…
Next month, I’ll share how a simple emergency light became the beginning of Junkland. But until then, I’d love to know: Have you ever had a single moment that completely changed the direction of your life?
