The Beginning
My first humor article, Putting Around the Office, was published in Disc Golf World News in 1998. I was 27 years old and I was extremely happy. Two years later I was writing regularly for some Web Zines and my own site, WriteJayWrite.
In 2003 I published a collection of my better blog posts (which I started calling “essays”), titled Living Beyond My Means. I like to look at this book on occasion to see how far I have come as a writer.
The Middle
In 2004 I was contacted by PIL Books to contribute to two books, 50 Uses for Your Dog and 50 Uses for Your Cat, which can be found on Amazon, in the bargain bin at some retail stores, and in my living room. At the time I was blogging at Xanga and enjoying the new-found writing freedom that blogging offered.
While in grad school I started a new blog, Unfocused Content, where the bulk of my writing still lives. From 2007 to 2009 I blogged semi-regularly, and a few of my articles were picked up by The Chicago Sun Times and Reuters. My most popular post came in January of 2008 and was titled Call Me Chubbie. It was a piece I wrote after seeing a commercial for a local gym, and it had over 10,000 views. That was a good feeling, and one I would never have again while blogging.
In March of 2009 my youngest daughter passed away very suddenly. I wrote a lot about that, but I didn’t post much. Several months after her death I began work on a second collection of essays titled Antes De. (Which I am almost certain is Spanish for “Before.”) The book is continually in the editing phase, but I hope to someday publish it.
The End
It has taken me some time to come to terms with life again, and to want to write again, and that is where I am now. I have two to five creative projects in the hopper right now, and am consistently feeling like I’m going in the right direction. Links to most of these projects can be found on this site. As always, thanks for visiting.
-Jay
August, 2011
