A View From The Cheap Seats

Whatever I write will fall short, fall flat, short change how I feel after finishing A View From The Cheap Seats. I wish I had read it when I was in my 20's, because in these pages Neil Gaiman has provided the code I needed to become a writer, when I made the unfortunate decision to take the safe route and work for a lumber company, not because I knew anything about the building industry or cabinets, or about kitchens and baths, or windows and doors, or about logistics, or credit, purchasing, or sales, but because I was afraid of being poor.

Neil Gaiman did exactly the opposite. He became a master of comic book writing, journalist, best selling author, world traveler, friend of artists, writer of introductions, whose novels and comics have been woven into the very fabric of American culture via audio & cinematic productions, not because he was afraid of being poor, but because he so loved the process of creating stories, he was willing to risk it all and live on the edge.

Ironically, as I write, my life is consumed with debt, despite the riches I amassed when I was young, because I hitched my wagon to a declining industry, where talent was seem as a commodity, and later made the decision to become a teacher, foolishly believing it would be easy and profitable, around the age of 40, after 9-11. Meanwhile, Neil became the proverbial honest man who started with financial insecurity but who now truly writes with no fear of financial ruin, like his friend, Stephen King.

Today, I am fearless, because I work with a population of students who need models of fearlessness, and because I view education as a pathway to opportunity, and many middle school students do not yet see the urgency of needing to learn how to think for themselves and unlearn learned helplessness, because I have come out on the good side of so many impossible situations that I know I live a charmed life and I always win eventually, and because I am no longer afraid of losing everything, or dying, because I've become comfortable living on the edge.

One page per day. Figure it out. Be honest while telling fiction.