How did I get here? Many times, I must ask myself, am I a writing pilot, or a flying writer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was in second grade, just getting a handle on reading, I remember standing in the hallway of our house in Tampa holding a book, a children\u2019s book, Hans Christian Andersen\u2019s Fairy Tales<\/em>. The unique thing about this book was that my uncle, James Caraway, illustrated it. My mother was doing the laundry again, a seemingly endless task with four young children. Holding the book, I looked at her and asked, \u201cMom, the people who write these books, do they make money?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo, they don\u2019t,\u201d she chuckled. Although I didn\u2019t know it at the time, she lied to me. It wasn\u2019t until later in my life I would discover the real truth about writing books and money\u2014truth like John Grisham\u2019s net worth was north of $200 million, made in part by his writing. Tom Clancy, Stephen King, Danielle Steel, Dan Brown, Nora Roberts, and others all created tremendous wealth by writing. Between the two of them, James Patterson and J. K. Rowling brought in a cool $1.38 billion over the last ten years. So, yeah, my mom lied to me. Oh well, she did teach me about logic and the importance of doing research, and that has been worth its weight in gold over my lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The ability to read and research\nwere things I learned at a young age. It helped foster a curious mind, which\nmade me seek out answers for ideas I did not know or understand. This turned\nout very helpful in both school and aviation. In school, it helped with those\ncourses I enjoyed: music, chemistry, drafting, and history. In aviation, it\nhelped me learn the importance of basic math and how the numbers interacted\nbetween how an airplane was built and how it performed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I am very grateful for the curiosity I developed when young. I am also thankful for my childhood, one lived in a time before “dinklepods” as my friend Mike describes cell phones and other electronic distractions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naturally, I still found myself\ndistracted by other things as I was growing up. Primary of which were girls. It\u2019s\na teenager\u2019s lot in life, of course, and like all teenagers, many of my friends\nand I did not know what we were doing when it came to the fairer sex. It would\nbe something we would learn more in-depth later in our lives. It was something\nmy mother mentioned later that would honestly factor into my becoming a writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now I was in the tenth grade. That\nwas when I mentioned to my mother my three main interests were flying, writing,\nand music. Like most kids in high school, I wondered what I would do later in\nlife for a career. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I said something to Mom about writing, and she said, \u201cYou can\u2019t write.\u201d That kind of shocked me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d I asked. What she said\nnext has stayed with me since she said it, and while I could recognize the\ntruth of it, I still thought I could write.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou have not lived enough. You\nneed more experience,\u201d she answered. What she said made a lot of sense, but\nlike all teenagers, I knew it all. Because of this, I did not know what I did\nnot know. However, what I didn\u2019t know, I would soon learn\u2014but that learning\nwould take a lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The thing about lifetimes is that\nno one is ever guaranteed a set amount of time. Some people live to be very\nold, while others live extraordinary lives that end far too soon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But it is the living of an allotted\ntime of life that gives one the experience enabling him or her to become a\nsolid writer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some people recognize this;\nBenjamin Franklin was one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He said, \u201cEither write something\nworth reading or do something worth writing.\u201d I can imagine that during Mr.\nFranklin\u2019s time, many of the Founding Fathers were doing \u201csomething worth\nwriting\u201d about. This concept led me to aviation. In particular, Naval Aviation\n(nothing was more exciting).<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my mind, serving the military\nand flying for our nation was something I believed fit Ben Franklin\u2019s\ndefinition of doing something worth writing. I was to find out later the truth\nof my mother\u2019s words and wisdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lifetimes. It seemed like I lived many. And in the process, I had great fun, went around the world. I loved. And I lost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n All of which became a part of that\nnebulous phenomenon known as \u201cexperience.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Keep in mind, experience comes in\nmany different formats. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s the experience of knowing what you are doing driving a car, sailing a sailboat, flying an aircraft. And there\u2019s the experience of losing best friends. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And the worst, losing your life partner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That was the kind of experience my mother was talking about way back in 1968.<\/p>\n\n\n\n -30-<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a92020 J. Clark<\/em> <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How did I get here? Many times, I must ask myself, am I a writing pilot, or a flying writer? When I was in second grade, just getting a handle on reading, I remember standing in the hallway of our … Continue reading
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