You Did What?!
The initial reaction is almost always the same. People
just can't seem to understand why an attorney with a lucrative practice would
give up that practice — and the income — so that he could spend his time
writing. But that is just what I did.
At the end of 2009, I sold my interest in my law firm in
order to pursue writing full time. It was not an easy decision to make, and it
was not a decision that I made lightly. After all, I have a family to support
and bills to pay every month.
But in the end, I realized that the choice I was making
was between the safe and the practical on the one hand, and adventure and
excitement on the other. It's not that I've never had adventure or excitement
in my life, for I have:
- lived in
nine states, the District of Columbia, and one foreign country;
- traveled
widely, to 34 other states and 21 other foreign countries;
- served in
the military;
- jumped out
of airplanes, gone scuba diving, rappelled, navigated white water by canoe and
raft, hiked, and camped; and
- successfully
fought to overturn unjust law.
Some might say that is enough adventure for one lifetime,
but I don't agree. The ultimate adventure is not found in the excitement of new
places and people or in the adrenaline rush of extreme physical activity, but
in acknowledging dreams and then pursuing them with gusto. And my number one
dream has always been to write for a living. For years I have realized that
dream only partially and without much satisfaction, for I have written
commentaries for newspapers, articles for law reviews and scholarly journals,
and even some poetry, but I had never taken the plunge and written a book.
What I have discovered is that adventure is not merely a
matter of body, but also mind and spirit. Real adventure challenges not only
physically, but mentally and spiritually. And that brings us to the protagonist
in my first novel, Archibald Zwick and
the Eight Towers, whose adventure is physical, mental, and spiritual. Click on the underlined link to watch my author video.
|