It is a languid summer afternoon in 2016 – one of those days where the sun appears to barely trawl across the sky and the wind neither cares which way it goes, nor how fast it does so. Courtesy of Manchester-by-the-Sea’s ever-present marine layer, a strong scent of seaweed, fish, and salt permeates the air. I am reminded that the ocean – its blue stripe splashed across the horizon – awaits should I yield to its calling. 

But I have other plans. Brain baked in the sweltering heat and trying to ignore the swing set as it tempts me from the lawn, I sit upright and rapt with attention. Splayed across my lap is a Macbook, a Microsoft Word document open to the complete manuscript of my latest book: Diary of a Minecraft Olympian 8. 

Methodically, I scroll the story’s contents. Having spent the last month furiously reflecting, brainstorming, and drafting, it is decidedly liberating to have brought this 13,000 word saga to fruition. I love writing – the way it permits me to turn my imagination into palpable scenes and storylines – but if there is one thing I relish in more than the process, it is being able to share my work with others. My fans await, and each day I spend writing is another they spend deprived. Will Steve triumph over the Herobrine and the zombie horde? How will the great battle between good and evil transpire? Reviewers flood my notification box with questions, and it is all I can do not to answer prior to the release date. 

With tentative hands, I open Kindle Direct Publishing. It is the moment before issuing any title that I experience qualms. This time around, though, I find myself surprisingly tranquil. I am no longer new to the rodeo; eight books and counting, I have amassed a prolific fanbase who plaster my works with five-star reviews and motivation. It is their words – the community I have built – that galvanizes me to churn out manuscript after manuscript. 

Having written since the age of six, it would be inaccurate to state that the Minecraft Olympian series jump-started my affixation with writing. That said, it would be veracious to claim that I was invigorated. I am a dream chaser. I follow in the footsteps of those I admire and do so with the greatest aspirations. When my mother read me The Hobbit at age five, not only did I seek to realize a similar work, but, like Tolkien, I wanted to see my name engraved upon the spines of books around the world. By age eight, I was halfway – The Great Battle from the West and Harry Potter and the Misleading Passages were both novellas I completed but failed to publish. Three years onwards with the fruits of my labor splayed across Amazon, fulfillment gave way to jubilance as thousands flocked to read my works.

Though pleased by my early successes, I seek to deter the notion that they signified a dream met and an end reached. Rather, when I matured from writing about Minecraft it became a question of what next. An academic novella on running? Superb! Now what next? A poetry book, a sci-fi epic, an anthology about extraterrestrial beings? A worthwhile idea is one that I will take in stride and see to completion. It is the “what next?” that augments my output, sustains my motivation, and eternalizes my predilection for writing.

The marine layer creeps across the lawn in a daydream-like swell as my hand hovers over the “publish” button. Now, however, I am no longer a prepubescent eleven-year-old riding a pipe dream. Six years forward, this submission will mark my sixteenth title and draw to a close the first sequence of my writing career. I have written big things; I have written small things. I have published some – refrained to do so for others. 

But, as the first chapter of a novel preludes the journey, it is through the coming adventure that I may discover new microcosms, hone my craft, and further my love for writing.