It seems to be true that time flies when you’re having fun. It’s hard to believe, but I’ve been a writer for five years. It still feels strange saying that, but I suppose with sixty straight months of being published and my first book under my belt, I can say that. The reality is I was writing before, but I never would have called myself a writer. I had a bunch of manuscripts I had started, most of which are still in a partial state, and I had a blog I had been writing off and on for years but since no one had to say yes for that to be published, I didn’t feel like it counted. However, it is what got this whole writing thing really going.
I had started my blog under the title The Workin Dad; the URL The Working Dad had already been taken. It began as a blog about… well, being a dad. I started it a few years after my daughter was born. I quickly ran out of things to write about, so I changed the site to my name and blogged about whatever I wanted. As my subscriber base grew, one in particular turned out to be integral to my future writing endeavors. David Pillinger, who has the magazine Southside Living, offered to publish some of my blog posts in his magazine if I sent them over. I was shocked. First off, I couldn’t believe he read it; we knew each other but not well. I was also blown away that he was going to put something that I wrote in print. That conversation was in the fall of 2019, and in January 2020, I was officially a published writer when David included one of my posts in his magazine. Who would have thought that five years later, he would end up asking me to write the features for his magazine, which I’m currently doing and am honored to do so.
He continued to regularly include some of my posts, and his doing so gave me the confidence to reach out to Whatcom Talk about writing for them. After a little coaxing and offering to write an article for free, Stacee Sledge said yes, and I was now one article away from being a paid writer. Fortunately, she liked the article, and five years later, I haven’t missed a month of being published in one place or another, and most months, I have had multiple pieces published.
It still doesn’t seem real that writing is something I get to do. I have had the opportunity to share many adventures and interview so many interesting people. I hope that five years from now, I can write another post about having been writing for ten years. Many of you who subscribe to my blog have been doing so since nearly the beginning, and I want to say thank you for taking the time to read my work. It means a lot. I will continue to do my best to come up with new ideas to write about. I also want to thank all the publications that have allowed me to write for them.
I always try to end my blog posts with some sort of insight, and in this case, it’s the cliché of if you want something, just go for it.
In celebration of five years of publication and over 150 published pieces, here are some links to ten of my favorite published pieces. It was hard to choose, and they may not be the most popular ones, but for one reason or another, they are important to me. If you have never read them, I hope you enjoy them. Most of my other published pieces can be found here.
Thanks for reading!
From Mt. Baker to Mt. Vesuvius
A Winter Snowshoeing Adventure Through the North Cascades
A Day in the Life of a Puget Sound Crabber, Fourth-Generation Whatcom Fisherman Kaegan Gudmundson
Bellingham Bladesmith David Bennett Creates Functional Art
Tony Moceri 
Leave a comment