How I Became A Writer

For over two million miles and the better part of twenty-eight years, I rode around. All those years, I never knew what it was I wanted to do when I grew up... so I didn’t. When I was young, big trucks and the call of the open road were all I could hear. It always seemed as if the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was just beyond the next horizon.

I chased many dreams over the years, but none of them were ever to be mine. A dream can never be yours if it isn’t really yours to begin with so eventually I stopped dreaming and died. There were several long, hard years that I thought I served no purpose except to take up space. I’m not going to tell you all the stories about broken hearts and dreams long since lost. We’ve all experienced heartaches and disillusionment to some degree, and it would serve no purpose to go into detail here. I’ll only say that sooner or later we all have to get over it.

I started writing in nineteen-ninety-six as a means to work out the pain of a broken heart and hoped to write songs as music is one of my greatest passions, second only to beautiful women. Then I started writing poetry. It didn’t take me long to figure out that there are too many angst-filled poets in the world writing more gloom and despair than we’ll ever want to read so I asked God to let me write something funny. He did, and with that Carrot On A Stick was born. When my boss at the time read the title poem he fired me even though it wasn't about him. A few years later the title poem from Cold Dry Biscuits got me a raise.

I began sharing my songs and poetry with friends who encouraged me to write more.My telephone rang all the time with people wanting to hear my latest musings, so I joyfully complied with their wishes. Soon I was reading in churches, at coffee houses, in bars and even truck stops. Everywhere I went, even at work, people wanted to hear my poetry. It wasn’t long before I figured out that while all of this was fun it was really a waste of time. I needed to write a book and write a book I did. Since then I've published 3 more books and written dozens.

All this from a guy who had a perfect “D” average in English class and never learned to type.I guess that accounts for the bad grammar and errors in punctuation but I think you’ll get the point anyway. Is something dangling here?