E.S. Raye

So, I’ve been at this for a few months now, and some of you appear to be repeat readers, so I thought it was high time I talked a little about myself, specifically, my journey to writing.

It all started, as it so often does, with reading. From a young age, I was an avid reader, and always reading years above my age group. I always scored high on reading comprehension, and I’ve always seemed to remember a higher percentage of what I read than others, especially when it came to stories.

But I had never considered writing anything. Until high school, that is.

Right around 9th grade, I discovered fan fiction. I read tons of it and even started writing my own mashup of my favorite shows with a few original characters. But this was only a hobby, and while I knew it was technically possible others would read it, it never occurred to me that anyone actually would. Eventually, high school life got in the way and writing sort of just faded away.

(In hindsight, I find this all sort of funny. I was originally planning on going to university for engineering, and when I got my SAT results it turned out I did better in English than math. At the time, my father asked me if I wouldn’t rather go into a field like writing. I said no.)

After a false start at one engineering school, I eventually went to university for psychology. I think this may have been when the spark for writing relit, if only to smolder in the background for years. You see, my psychology courses involved a lot of essay writing. That meant hours of research, organizing thoughts, and committing them to the page.

And I loved it. More than the subject matter I was talking about.

When my time at university was drawing to a close, I needed to decide what I was going to do with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. The options seemed to be go on for a higher degree (for which I didn’t really have the grades), or do something tangentially connected to psych, like advertising.

It was also around this time that, when discussing things like video games, books, or movies, friends would be astonished at the details I remembered, and I would always say, “I have a memory for stories” (Pretty straightforward foreshadowing, that is).

So, I attended a diploma program for advertising, taking the copywriting stream so I could capitalize on my interest in research and writing.

Meanwhile, I had this idea for a story about a superhero during World War II rattling around in my head for years. I thought it would make a great comic book or graphic novel, but I knew I didn’t have the skill to draw it, nor the know-how to find someone that could.

So, I worked as a freelance marketing content writer for a few years, kept talking about my “memory for stories,” and kept noodling my story idea, thinking that’s all I would ever do with it.

And then I met the woman that would become my wife.

She looked at everything I was doing, heard all my ramblings, and finally said, “Why not make it a novel instead of a comic book?”

And it was like someone had flipped a switch.

I’m still working on that story, which my “Constant Readers” (to borrow a phrase from Stephen King) might recognize as The Cobalt Fist, but I’ve also written a novel (which is currently in the hands of a publisher I think it’s perfect for, so keep those fingers crossed), a bunch of short stories, one that has been published, and another will be before the end of the year, and a few screenplays, both short and feature-length, two of which I am working with an independent film company to bring to the screen!

It’s been a wild journey, and I’m only just at the beginning of it all.

I’m still doing some freelance marketing writing, but 2024 has been a great year for my fiction so far, and I’m hoping the day is coming soon that I’ll be able to make my living on pure fiction.

And I hope you’ll stick around for the ride!