Why I Write

01.06.2026

I love reading just about anything from author Robert Greene. He is a creative genius. Linking world shaping events in history with our mundane everyday lives. It’s like it’s his ‘calling’…

That word reminds me of being a kid in the 90s. At church, which was everyday, having a “calling” meant you were necessary. In our youth group program we slung that word around like it was nothing.

“Brother Killings, you are not operating in your calling” Someone would say.

“Sister so and so, I think your calling is in Service” Another observed.

It mostly came from adults directed to us youths. However, we all used it.

I remember being tall then. I still am now. So I stuck out a bit everywhere, but at church especially and I felt like it was easy for people to call me out. My freckled face didn’t scream inconspicuousness either. But ask anyone at church why I somehow ended up being the one called up for a prayer or a prophecy and they would say it was my calling.

Once, a guy started a prophecy over me and he led off with “Lord put this young man on our basketball team”, even Jesus laughed.

He went on to say a lot of cool stuff. Some of the stuff made a lot of sense and some not so much. He said at one point that there were people that I was witnessing too that were athletes, he paused, then asked “Do you play sports?” I did not.

The coaches at school had even asked me to play. Offering me guaranteed spots over other players that were not only interested in but worked hard at basketball but, I wasn’t much for sports. A lot of my friends played but I was always in love with the arts.

I loved music especially. My mom could sing and play piano. My sister inherited her gift of singing. I did not. I got a sort of unsinging ability. My brother could play the drums. My dad plays the bass. I loved music but I was no good at making it.

I did however, discover that I liked the words to songs. They were my favorite part of anything. Video games, church, music. I ended up writing rap songs. I often still do.

Me and my brothers started a rap group and I loved to hear what they wrote and compare, dissect and brag. But again, it seemed that everyone else was good at the rapping part. Performing, weather it be in the living room or on a stage. Everyone but me.

On paper (this is back when people still wrote on paper) I was a lyrical genius. But I didn’t quite have the knack for performing like the rest of the crew. I ended up falling back into the business side of things.

I guess it’s kind of obvious, so I’ll cut to it…

I really liked the writing parts of things. It makes me a bit sad because I’ve written songs that I’ll never hear sang. Verses that will never lace a beat. Poems that will never get a snap applause and so on and so forth.

Being in love with the arts, I studied Fashion Design in college and let me tell you there are not very many things that I took to more quickly as sewing while drinking. Give me some good fabric, a sturdy machine, and a couple of two buck chucks and everyone would be getting a pretty dress by 2am.

One semester I recall having a report due. The assignment was to be about a designer that we admired. I chose the one with the manliest faces I could find, Bill Blass, as so no one thought I was gay. (My true favorite designer was, maybe still is, John Galliano)

I stood up in front of the class and delivered my report. The class laughed, ohhed ahhed and all that. My teacher said “I love these kind of essays, cause I don’t have to grade them. You are a true writer and an entertainer! A plus“

Great for the assignment but not for my cofidence in my career choice. The same year I had a general Education English teacher who adorned my papers with such praise as “Bravo! Bravo! Bravo!” and “Brilliantly written!” atop all my papers. It was a creative storytelling class I believe.

At the end of the semester he called me up to his desk and asked “Are you sure you don’t want to be a writer?” Then shook my hand and wished me good luck in fashion.

I recall it made me sad. Maybe more introspective than sad.

(Side Note: I recently just found the paper that he wrote the “bravo” comment on. I read it. I cried a little bit when I did. I wasn’t bad. Maybe I'll post it in a later chat.)

This all reminded me of to the moment I realized words were magic. Like spells you could cast. It was also at the church.

At the last minute of the pastor’s appreciation one Sunday I scribbled a quick blurb about what he and his wife meant to us, the youth group. It was read aloud by one of our members. I won’t forget, he cried.

And so did a man in the congregation called brother Clarence. Brother Clarence died, not that day but eventually. He was a good man. He asked me once what I was doing with my life. I answered college. He said “thats not what I asked you” with his ever-present smile.

He was that kind of guy. We all know a few. Huge gut. Cool jackets that are a size too small. Always bigger than you remember them when you see them. Hot girlfriend. Full of magic. We all know brother Clarence.

Shortly after Brother Clarence died, I found a book while on the bus going to work one day. (Martha Beck and Rick Ruben have both written about how the universe or God will kinda throw something in your path at the most opportune times. That was this book.) Musashi. I loved it. Tore through the whole book before I even realized it was book two in a series.

I recall being very happy that there was more. Then I found out that he was real guy, this Musashi. Magic he was. Like brother Clarence. This Musashi was dead too. But he wrote a book.

He wrote a book.

People that write books are geniuses. Geniuses that love words. That understand the magic of words. That can craft spells that leap off of a page and compel another person to do something … ANYTHING!

I hadn’t been to a church in a while. I started drinking a lot and you know, became an adult. My mom asked me go. She said a prophet was going to be there. I rolled my eyes but since I was texting her it didn’t matter.

Another man at a church pointed to me at the end of the service. He said “Gods got a word for you. Come on up here.” I often wonder how he saw me there towering over everyone else.

I went. But I didn’t really feel like it. He said “Mmmm… You are going to come cross a book. That book is going to change the course of your life.” (I still have a cassette of this.) He said “You are going to meet a woman named Tiffany and she is going to change your life.” I was frustrated at that for some reason. He also said “Do you know that the oldest name for Jesus in the Bible is ‘the word’? Well it is.”

And that was it.

I wasn’t sure what God was trying to tell me. But I needed a drink. By this time there were less two buck chucks and a lot of cheap brandy. Mostly because that is what my wife and I could afford. She didn’t think much of the prophesy. We had other much more eventful prophesy situations. So this one was meh.

I got hammered that night but the next day I woke up and I wanted to die. Like brother Clarence. The magic in the world was gone. Except for in mechanical watches which are basically magic. But I was poor.

I kept going to work. I didn’t die. I stopped reading though. I also stopped making dresses. It all seemed to happen fast. I had a big gut. A big everything. My jackets were too small. I hated everything. Mostly I hated the life I had made for myself.

Then a friend at work told me bout a book he was reading. The Eye of the World. It was good. It was better than good. It was Star Wars. It was Lord of the Rings. It was the Bible. It was everything.

It also had many books in a series. A lot of reading. Years of reading. And I was going through a lot at the time that the last book came out. And when it was over. I prepared myself for that empty feeling readers get when good book is over. I was scared to feel empty again. I was just scared in general. Not sure when I became a coward.

But something strange happened. I wasn’t empty. I was full of ideas and creativity. I found that I had always been creative it was just a two way street. Work, relationships, and drinking had blocked the street that led in and thus the other street had nothing to send out.

That book. That series. It all had opened that street.

I almost “wasn’t” because of my own selfishness that wanted me to wallow in death awaiting someone or something, divine or mortal, to see me in my filth and lift me up, make me whole and right and send me on my way. Proud that others could see me thrive. But I had a strange savior.

Words had saved me. And continue to do so. So I repay them symbiotically by writing them down in as many creative combinations and patterns as I can. It comes as second nature. Like wine and sewing. Maybe even first nature. But I am sure that it is my calling.

So why do I write? I think it is best stated in this quote…

We create, for it is why we are

-CMJ