Jay Cameron Parker

On Writing

I began writing in high school with the soundtrack of Fleetwood Mac, Van Halen, Earth, Wind and Fire, and Journey playing in the background. HIV was lurking in the shadows of the era, but not many people knew about it. Adults kept telling me I'd be going off to war in Iran once I graduated. I tried not to think about it.

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I wrote. The ideas and stories spilled out with such force that I sometimes found myself writing on napkins or anything I could find while traveling from one class to another. I wrote fiction during math class, drivers ed., and social studies, barely passing each one.

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My other passion was the theater. I wrote there too. First sketches, then one-acts, and by my senior year, I had a full-length play produced by the drama department for the spring production.

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In college, I continued to write and received some literary awards, two of my stories tied first place with each other.

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I wrote before I was married, during my marriage, while my kids were growing up, and I just completed my second novel in between running my grandkids to and from school.

Throughout my life, I've known incredibly talented, creative people who gave up their craft when they couldn't make a living at it. Sometimes I made a living as a writer. Sometimes as an actor. There were other times where I earned my living doing things that had nothing to do with either. But the thought of giving up my crafts seldom crossed my mind.

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Am I a successful writer? I think so.

I'm still writing.