Chapter 99/99/9999

Authors Note

Little Loves,

Well, let's be honest, if any of us had the right words to express it, would we even have this wonderful and strange art of poetry?

Poetry was my beginning, and - fun fact - I didn't retain the slightest belief that I could write good fiction until I finished Generations  and A One Car Catastrophe. I'd been journaling pretty heavy, sure, but full length fiction? Nahhh. When I pushed those pieces out into the universe, I had to look in the mirror and tell myself out loud; "Stop doubting yourself, my dude, just because you haven't done something doesn't mean you can't excel."

Coupled with the sage advice of my dad, "Can't - went and died in the poorhouse and won't - went with him!"

And I think that's true for a lot of us, our minds become clouded with other peoples doubts, as we grow and learn to move around in the world, we change, and some people from our past can never  seem to see you for anything but the person you were,  even after twenty years! Sometimes you have to silence their voices, and search  within yourself, for your own unique sound and self-encouragement. You gotta block 'em out sometimes and give yourself a little self love!

A dear friend blew my mind with a simple question, during this volumes composition, he asked; "Who are you"

And like ninety percent of oh, I don't know, the entire world, or something. I began blurting out all these different things about me that I'd always assumed had anything to do with my identity.

"I'm an artist, I'm a closet-writer, I'm a brother, I'm a son, I'm a musician..."

The list goes on, but after a few moments of my sloppy "about me" rant, he smiled and held up his hand, saying "Hold on. You are more enlightened than this, and you are a seeker of truth. Ask me that same question."

"Okay, Ache (Espanol for H), who are you?"  I asked.

"I am who I choose to be." was his reply.

And it really hit me, so much of the guilt I've worked through over the years had more to do with not being able to be who someone else thought I should be (not fitting in someone else's definition of who I am), than it had to do with violating my own morals. It made me appreciate myself on a daily basis, and start waking up with that phrase being the first thing I thought of each day.

Ache inspired me to take every shred of paper that evoked my name in a negative light - Rejection letters, terrible grade cards, traffic tickets, literally  every bad thing that anyone has ever had to say about me - and start creating art with it. Drawings, water-colors, poems, short stories and eventually full-length fiction. Because for me, that's what art has always been about, taking the terrible feelings and situations, and transforming them into something beautiful to behold. And I know it might make some wonder exactly how I managed to piss off enough of collective society to get that much negative paperwork on me - enough to draft 500,000 words of creative writing. To answer those questions while maintaining my dignity - growing up just really sucked for me. And so I destroyed myself, thinking I was taking it out on someone else. 

It took one hell of a lot of re-building to rebound from all that. And I'm sure we all still harbor some unhealthy regrets here and there, but using the hardships in life to stimulate the creativity; I can't let myself regret that. If I hadn't compiled a massive amount negative feedback on myself, well, I wouldn't have the privilege (and it really is a privilege) of sharing this art with you.

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU, LITTLE LOVES, for reading these words and sharing in some of my experiences. I do have about four or five more volumes of poetry to publish, but in these coming weeks I'm going to be focusing on sending out some queries to a few good agents so that I can start writing full time! 

Chris Q