The Journey Begins

Welcome to the inner machinations within the mind of T.M.S. Skaggs, my mind. Here you will find my inspirations, my successes, and my failures. This blog exists to chart my authorship journey, establish collaborations, fuel creativity, and if we are lucky, create a community around some badass stories. This post is an introduction, a toast to horror, to darkness, and the rays of hope that guide our path through life. And so we begin our journey where we all hope the map never leads, middle school.

Spend time with a pre-teen, a kid on the precipice of identity, and you will grow in ways you never imagined – or you will pull your hair out. I’ve done a little of both in my life as a middle grade social studies teacher. I’m sure I don’t have to write it, being in middle school is the worst. No one is having fun, everyone’s body is changing, and you can’t wear that sweet t-shirt of a dragon fighting a tiger because being cool actually matters now. 

What’s extra not cool? Being a substitute teacher while you’re “between opportunities,” yet that’s where I found myself in 2017. And as a teacher, you still can’t wear your t-shirt of a dragon fighting a tiger. You might think this was rock bottom, and in some ways it was for me. But I loved the job many more times than I loved being in an office. I mean, how cool is it talking about history and writing all day while also being the only expert in the room? Oh, and the students really do look up to you. You’re a role model, whether you want to be or not. I ate it up. It came at the perfect time of my life. 

Nothing's more brutal than nature. Taken from a Thanksgiving trip to Colorado.

Then, along came National Novel Writer's Month (NaNoWriMo). Now, I’m not the biggest fan of NaNoWriMo. I think the core concept is inherently flawed because if you are a writer, you should be writing every day, and you should have a list of writing goals to accomplish. Every month is NaNoWriMo. However, tell a 12 year old that their mission over the next 30 days is to write whatever story they want and our school will publish their book, their eyes light up like roman candles on the 4th of July. Students clamored to join and the energy was infectious.

During recess, my classroom overflowed with students, their heads tilted down, composed. Their attention entirely focused on crafting the greatest pieces of literature known to the world. And that’s truly how some viewed it. Excited, they told me the plot of their stories. They detailed how amazing their protagonists were and all of the twists and turns across the pages. They spoke with such energy and excitement. Some of their stories were well written and showed signs of talent. Could they face the rigors of a publishing house?

It was their blind ambition and joy that inspired me the most. They didn’t understand how the world was against them. How could they? They were in middle school. How many rejection letters had they received from college? None. How many times did they have to scratch a grad school off their list because their grade point average wouldn’t cut it? None. How many times had they flunked a test? None. It was one small leap for a middle schooler, one giant step for mankind. What they shat was gold. And beyond any of this, they had no bills to pay.

As my mind churned over their innocent enthusiasm, I understood the gravity of what I witnessed. They had something that I didn’t have, something that society beat out of me long ago, courage. These middle schoolers exhibited a fearlessness towards critique. They created because they wanted to create. I was struck by their imagination and self-assuredness. They possessed so much of what I lacked.

I sat there behind the desk, the immovable anchor that chains adults in their place, and I felt a tingle radiate throughout my body. I had seen it, the root of inspiration – a window into the creative force that lies dormant within our souls – and I immediately understood its importance. Then it whispered a question inside my head. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?

The answer seemed apparent to me as I watched my students write. It felt as if the universe slapped me upside the face to the point that my ears rang. I would be an author. I would write. After all, if these children had the courage to put finger-to-keyboard and spill their thoughts across a blank page, what was stopping a full-grown adult? Our own inhibitions perhaps.

And so by going back to middle school I learned not what I loved, but to love again. I wrote a short story about an average Joe who gets possessed by a terrible demonic force. This inkling of a story hashed out in a period of a week set my imagination stirring. The story may have been a miss, but the concept of possession and the emotional terror of the afflicted? That stuck in my head. From that moment forward, I chose to pin my authorship dreams on dark fantasy.

Brutal.

If middle school was my call to action, what inspiration drew me to this original story and the genre of dark fantasy? Metal. Heavy metal. This unique genre of music carries with it discourse about events, people, and themes that other genres simply can’t. For example, Iron Maiden has made a living from crafting songs based on historical events. I wrote much of my first stories listening to particular artists, albums, and songs on repeat. The original drafts I concocted were an ode to metal – brutal, in your face, and hard as hell. They were also objectively bad. Remember, each draft makes your creation a more perfect version of itself.

Never let overcast skies keep you from noticing the beauty that surrounds you.

So I had a dream – to be an author. I had a genre or a feeling – dark fantasy. But in those early days, I wasn’t truly a writer, I was a hobbyist. I wrote. I planned. I crafted. But I did it occasionally – on my time. I let my creativity out when I wanted, not carving out time for it. Through the patience and brilliance of my partner, the talented photographer, Rachel Waters, I realized that to be called a writer, I needed to do it all of the time. Every. Single. Day. It couldn’t be something I did during my free time, it needed to be scheduled into my day. It has to be a choice you make every day. It’s not something you want, it’s something you are.  

Writing has become more than a hobby for me. It is my boss. I owe it time. I give it time. In return, I improve. After all, what would I do with my life if I knew that I couldn’t fail? Well, I’d be an author because there’s nothing cooler in the world to me than cooking up badass characters, places, and societies and letting them run loose on the page. What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? I hope you do it.

You trudged with me through the terrors of middle school and safely made it out on the other side. We explored the influence of heavy metal music and even a little into my personal philosophy. And so the map of life leads us back to the present. To a man and his dreams of success. Whether you wanted to learn about my journey or take away a nugget of inspiration, hopefully you enjoyed this first post. Either way, I’m excited about the road ahead. I can’t wait to keep sharing my thoughts and see where our authorship life takes us. After all, we can’t fail.