Have you always wanted to be a writer?
Most people will give you a crazed look, a roll of the eye, and a statement to the affirmative with some level of profanity in it if you ask them whether I've always wanted to be a writer. However, the truth is that I have not always wanted to be a writer. In my younger years, I went through several years during which I was pretty set on being a lawyer, specifically, I criminal defense attorney. I cared nothing about having to go to college longer than my peers. Didn't even give any thought to the fact that I'd be building a career off twisting flat-out lies and cute little half-truths into plausible theories that I'd be tasked with convincing twelve average American citizens into believing as truths. I think money was motive behind that pursuit, but now, in my adult life, I'm a firm believer that having money as your motive will get you there, but it won't keep you there. If you're only doing something for money, you'll eventually get burned out on it because you don't enjoy what you're doing. Without that enjoyment, the job will eventually lose all its appeal, which would have very likely been the case for me.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I think I first considered myself a writer in the sixth grade when I started taking my first Creative Writing class. That was when I first knew I was serious about all things writing. I first actually started believing I was a writer when my first book, Living in His World of Lies, dropped in 2017. At that point, I hadn't just written something. I, in fact, had written quite a bit by that point, as I used to be a poet as well, but actually becoming a published author made it real for me. That was like the graduation point from writer to author.