Careers That Never Happened (And You’re Welcome)

English and I were mortal enemies, which is ironic considering this is now my author website. While I was failing gloriously, I distracted myself by gaming and swapping dream jobs like hats, each one doomed in its own ridiculous way.

First I thought I’d be a chef. Realistically, that career would have ended with me in handcuffs after poisoning someone with purple cheese. Then I considered forensic anthropology, but Emily Deschanel and David Boreanaz forgot to mention the gooey body farm bits on Bones. Artist? I tried it in high school, but it was basically a lifetime subscription to Nervous Breakdown Weekly.

So you’re welcome, world, that I sidestepped all those disasters. And thank you, me — I already have enough mental maladies without adding professional stress. Still, part of me would have enjoyed preparing my Anthony Hopkins impression for jail. “How was your chicken, Clarice?”

But instead of ending up in jail for poisoning people, I decided to torture myself in a much healthier way: by butchering multiple languages.

Language Nerd, Accidentally

Languages were always a little weird for me. I was terrible at French, okay at Spanish, but never really nailed it. Then, through years of being a low-level weeb (is that right… fellow kids?), I ended up absorbing a surprising amount of Japanese vocabulary.

So while English and I were locked in battle, Japanese somehow snuck in the back door. By some bizarre alchemy of watching subtitled Dragon Ball Z from ages 8 to 18, I wound up with a surprisingly decent accent and a vocabulary that confused everyone, especially my poor Spanish teacher. She was disappointed in my Spanish but weirdly supportive of my Japanese obsession, even letting me scribble nonsense on the classroom whiteboard. Gracias, señora.

Unfortunately, my Spanish mark tanked my application to an East Asian language program. I panicked. In my brain it was either go to post-secondary or start perfecting my Hannibal Lecter impression about KFC’s secret herbs and spices.

Regina, Rhymes With Fun (And I Mean It)

Just when I was ready to spiral into my KFC villain arc, the University of Regina came to the rescue. The city that “rhymes with fun,” crudely, was in fact fun. One of the best experiences of my life. People call it boring, and I say fight me. If you know someone in Regina who can’t throw a wild party, let me know, because I never met them.

And in my humble opinion, the U of R also had some of the loveliest, most supportive teachers and a great language program. Remember, just because a place looks boring doesn’t mean the people there are. People adapt. And I adapted into being a better student.

Also bless the hot professor who taught me English basics. I am fairly sure he cried behind closed doors over my papers, but he stuck with me until I actually understood what a noun was. English is my first language, I was just bad at it. No, I wasn’t secretly a prodigy in some other area — I was just your average dumb North American teenager who loved anime, horror movies, and getting destroyed in wrestling by girls who weighed less than paper. (Is that a good sequel title for The Secret Life of the American Teenager?)

From Japan to Home to Here

Naturally, the next logical step for an anime-loving, horror-watching, wrestling-losin’ teenager was to pack up and move to Japan to teach English. So, after graduation, I did exactly that. I loved it, but I could not handle the loneliness and the work culture forever. I came back to Canada in 2018, hopped through a series of office jobs, and then, of course, the pandemic hit.

Through all of that, though, one thing kept resurfacing: my book. I had been working on bits and pieces of it since I was 17, when I first wrote a short story about the Deliverance Trials for high school English. That assignment actually got me one of my first decent grades. Over the years I picked it up and put it down again, never really planning to publish — just something I chipped away at when I was bored.

Then this year, my little furry son Charles passed away at 17. He was mine since 2008, a bougie dog who once inhaled an entire chicken nugget meal with plum sauce. He had his last zoomies, and then… he was gone. I adored that dog, even when he crop-dusted the family room with a fart and sprinted off knowing exactly what he’d done.

Losing him gutted me. To cope, I poured the energy I had spent on caring for him in his elderly years into writing. And this time, I thought, in for a penny, in for a pound. Let’s get Hell Hound Alice out there.

Spoiler: Writing Was Not the Hard Part

Of course, saying “let’s get it out there” was the easy part. The actual process? That was its own trial.

If you are writing a book, let me save you: the writing is not the hard part. I repeat, the writing is not the hard part. It is everything else. ISBN applications, scams, costs, tears, paperwork… it’s a crawl to the finish. But somehow, here we are.

So essentially, I went from English flunky to ESL teacher to office worker by day and passion-project novelist by night.

Hell Hound Alice is my debut book, but it won’t be my last. Unfortunately for your eyes, I’ve started more. The difference now is, I actually know what a noun is (thanks, Hot Professor from uni).

Welcome to the Weird

So that’s me. Welcome to my weird and wonderful ABnormal corner of the internet. Here you’ll get free short stories, blog posts, and occasional brain rambles. Think of it like a Salvador Dalí painting, only with more memes and fewer melting clocks.

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