Many years ago, when I was just a lad – more like a repulsive middle school twerp, I had a conversation with my Uncle Jerry. It wasn’t my fault. All middle schoolers are twerps. But I digress. This is a conversation that he probably forgot, but I never have.

At the time, I had begun trying to write stories. I had a pretty good imagination. Whole movies would play through my head. To me, they were great. But writing them down was exceedingly difficult for some reason. I was no slouch in English classes, but creative writing was so frustrating back then.

Well, one day, probably close to Christmas, the family had gotten together at my grandmother’s house. In the middle of several conversations, Uncle Jerry talked about how he liked to write. He told me that he never thought he could do it, but he would just write a little at a time. He kept some of his work in a box (fuzzy memory here for me). After some time he said he was surprised to find out that he had probably a hundred pages of material (again, fuzzy memory). He asked me if I liked to write.

Now, I know that one of my parents probably read some of my stuff and told him about it. But he took the time to encourage me. He even gave me some helpful writing tips. I’m very grateful to him for that. Writing is a big part of who I am. Even if I never sold one book, things just wouldn’t be the same for me without this way of organizing my thoughts. So remember, what you do matters. You may never know it, but it does. Thanks Uncle Jerry.