Finding the balance between two very different worlds.
Several years back I began to question whether or not to create an alternate nom de plume. Why? Because I was writing from two very different places.
Setting aside professional, business work:
Fiction
When I was nine years old I wrote Wildfire, a 50 page illustrated sci-fi novel. This was where I began my lifelong love of writing, and from there I started to create more stories, more worlds, and in time I started to call myself a writer.
Along the way, I finished the first three books of my epic fantasy series, The Source Chronicles, the first two books of my Steampunk series The Vapor Rogues, and for the last couple years have been working on a sci-fi epic called The Void Incursion.
Though I managed to get a couple of short stories about pirates and magic published in a pair of anthology works, after years of rejections from agents I self-published. Though my reach has not been as broad as I would like, I continue to write and work on figuring out better marketing to expand my audience.
Non-fiction
As New Years’ Eve 2012 approached, I gave a lot of thought to the idea of resolutions. What IS a resolution anyhow? This flaccid, vague notion of a change you consider making for the coming year is notorious for being dropped, ignored, and otherwise blown off.
So instead of a New Year’s Resolution, I took a New Years’ Action. I had created my blog website, The Ramblings of the Titanium Don, in 2010. I published a post from time to time, but now I took the action of publishing a post weekly.
The topic I created, Pathwalking, would quickly evolve into my personal philosophy for living a life on purpose with mindfulness and intent in order to consciously create reality. This led along the way to a broader exploration, and once a week blogging became twice a week, then three times a week.
I created a couple of books that, along with the blog, could be classified as a mix of self-help, inspiration, motivation, spirituality, and mindfulness practices.
Here we are in 2019, and I am writing full-time, publishing two posts a day every weekday to Medium.com. I am still posting twice a week at my blog website, and writing fiction.
As one writer of two minds, I struggled for a time with my identity. Could one writer publish both fiction and non-fiction successfully?
It’s a work in progress
Sometimes I still struggle with this identity crisis. Does it make any sense to be one writer of two minds to my potential audiences?
The short answer is yes.
The long answer is that I have examples of others who have done the same.
Two of my favorite authors write both fiction and non-fiction works on a regular basis. Paulo Coelho and Neil Gaiman.
I absolutely love the work of both of these authors. Coelho’s The Alchemist is probably my favorite book and has inspired me on more the one occasion (I have the audiobook downloaded, and it is read by Jeremy Iron. I re-listen to it frequently). Gaiman creates incredible worlds like no other, whether The Ocean at the End of the Lane or American Gods or other worlds, his work is mesmerizing and well crafted.
Further, both of these outstanding authors write about the craft itself, as well as their personal philosophies. Both maintain blogs which I tend to read, and both are the example of the author I most desire to be.
Practice, practice, practice
The best way to become a better writer is to keep writing. No matter the genre, I need to write, then write some more, and then write even more.
When presented with the opportunity to practice being a full-time writer, and all signs and portents pointing to that being the direction I needed to go, I took the chance and began to write daily. This exponentially increased my non-fiction work, and I think also helped me to improve as a writer overall.
There are still good days and bad days. Sometimes I neglect my fiction entirely for my non-fiction writing. I have a lot of editing I need to do, and then need to get that work to a professional for editing, too.
I love writing. Sharing my ideas, whether fantastical stories of fiction or life-affirming/changing/inspiring stories for self-improvement and personal development, I want to put them out there. Why? Because I think I can use this ability to help others be the best that they can be, as well as inspire creativity like my favorite authors have done for me.
Can one writer of two mindsets balance different genres? So far, so good…keep reading.
Thank you for reading these words, and taking part in my ongoing journey. Thank you for joining me.
Please take a moment to explore the rest of the website, which I am working to evolve and change for the better…much like I am doing for myself. Also, visit Awareness for
This is the twenty-sixth entry of my personal blog. Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published writing, which can be found here.
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