When my monthly Landmark Book arrived in the mail, I ripped the package open, went to my room, and read until I finished. I was 9 years old. Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Genghis Khan and the Mongol Horde. The most fun I had had.
“A writer,” I said when asked what I wanted to be. “A writer needs lots of experiences,” my serious librarian aunt said.
My friend Nico and I wanted to be sportswriters. He would be successful.
I read War and Peace twice, almost, and Of Human Bondage in two days.
In college, I wrote a satirical newsletter that I secretly scattered around campus and never heard anything about, thankfully.
I found a job so I would have enough experience to write. I wrote job related materials and felt good.
I started a 2 page newsletter at a tiny air base in Greece (100 people) and the base commander liked my article about how to travel to Athens by bus from our remote location. An adversarial office worker acknowledged that, “Ben is a very good writer.”
I wrote an intended to be funny letter on a senior colleague’s retirement. The general laughed. I was promoted.
I wrote a monthly column for a newsletter and a lady emailed, “What a good writer you are,” before she complained.
When my girlfriend broke up with me, I wrote her the nicest letter I could. She called me the day she received it and said, “That is the nicest letter I have ever read.” We were back together.
Two of my tennis friends, unsolicited, read “The Autograph Hunter.”
“It was a good read,” Josh said, a few days later. “Anything with an Epilogue is impressive.” He must have read the whole thing as soon as he received it!
“Thank you Ben you have a gift it was a great read,” Anil wrote.
The biggest compliment I received was from my brother. “I read your ‘About Me” post’,” he claimed. “It was good. I am inspired to read more.”
My editor said that the “The Autograph Hunter” was “very readable” and she hoped it would find an audience. The success of self-published books like The Martian and Travesty in Haiti has encouraged me to believe that decent content will find an audience. That’s why this website is here. That and the fact that writing has been as much fun as reading those Landmark Books 60 years ago.