Unprepared.

Looking back, I suppose it’s rather obvious that there would be many aspects of being an author that I wouldn’t be prepared for. In reality, there were NO aspects I was truly prepared for.

I think being an author has been similar, in some ways, to my experience being a gay man. With one big exception. I’ve dreamed of being an author for decades. Dreamed, hoped, prayed, and worked my ass off. Being gay? I dreamed, hoped, prayed, and worked my ass off to be straight. Years of reparative (learn to be straight) therapy, and a lifetime of hearing I was an abomination and damned. I’m so thankful that those particular dreams, hopes, prayers, and hard work didn’t pan out. Thank goodness!!!! That is where the differences stop, though.

Similar to being a gay man growing up in a small town, which led me not meet another gay man until I was in my twenties, I also never met another author. I was alone. In my sexuality, in my rock-star-dreams of authordom. Whether damned or not, I was the fabled unicorn. There were whispers of my kind, rumors. I knew I existed, but no one else did.

Discovering I was indeed not the only gay man on the planet was life changing. Truly. Being a unicorn is a lonely, heartbreaking existence.

Once I finally became a published author, I discovered I wasn’t alone there either. Not nearly as mythical as I thought I was. I’d never met another author. Sure, I’d come across others who said they dreamed of writing a book one day, but they hadn’t even written a paragraph. They were just dreams. I wrote constantly. I was actual writer. The only one. Flash forward four or five years. When I tell people I’m an author/writer, they are amazed. Like they really are meeting a unicorn (Much different experience that meeting a gay guy, LOL). They brag about how I’m doing what no one else does, how everyone talks about writing a book but no one ever actually does it. How impressive it all is. I wave them off. I know hundreds of authors, hundreds of people who are published or attempting to be published. While there is magic, true magic, in being published, in starting to live my dream, I no longer feel like that fabled unicorn. I am not special, I am not other.

That same fact was such a life-giving realization in regards to my sexuality. In most ways, that fact is also life-giving in regards to my writing as well. It’s amazing to be surrounded by author friends who understand what it is I go through. What the struggles, fears, and joys truly are. I couldn’t face those one star reviews without them. However, it has also truly stripped away the asinine notion that I’m that special unicorn. I’d believed that books and authors were so rare that once publishing took place, this little unicorn would grow wings and be lifted to the stars. I didn’t have delusions of riches and fame from one book (at least not many), but neither would I have believed that a book could be published and then forgotten three weeks later, or never even seen. That actual books existed that were birthed and then buried under heaps of their fellow newborn brothers and sisters.

Discovering that being gay didn’t make me different brought salvation. It gave me permission to exist. To flourish. To go for those writing dreams.

Discovering I’m not the only author (Duh, I know), has been truly amazing, but it also has made me realize that dream wasn’t nearly as ‘special’ as I thought it was. And it for sure isn’t guaranteed, no matter how many times you go through the publication process. It’s made me realize that the magic of writing (and I do still believe it’s magic) is dependant on the normalcy, job-like quality of it all.

Honestly, I have yet to decide if I find that a beautiful thing or simply painful. I do know I find it terrifying. Strip away the magic unicorn horn, and what’s left? Me. The human, fallible, run-of-the-mill me. Which means, this whole ‘making it’ gig? Well, sure there’s still some magic/luck required. But it truly does fall into my lap to create the magic that foster the life of those dreams coming to fruition.

I think the other aspect of magic that I didn’t know existed, that is beyond what I could have hoped for is the powerful bond between authors who support each other. That is a magic of its own. And the magic of loyal readers and authors? Holy crap. There’s enough magic there to summon an entire herd of unicorns. That both gives me hope and fills me with gratitude.

Brandon Witt’s outlook on life is greatly impacted by his first eighteen years of growing up gay in a small town in the Ozarks, as well as fifteen years as a counselor and special education teacher for students with severe emotional disabilities. Add to that his obsession with corgis and mermaids, then factor in an unhealthy love affair with cheeseburgers, and you realize that with all those issues, he’s got plenty to write about….