When I was a child, I spent most of my time burying myself in fictitious worlds to escape the dull reality that the real world had to offer. I needed something to keep pace with my imagination, and eventually, whenever Harry Potter was no longer enough, I began writing my own stories, writing song lyrics, creating comic books, and sketching drawings. One of my favorites was when I created a system of floating cities that were based on the elements. It was a lot of deep anime type shit.

I did anything I could to get the thoughts running through my mind out of it. Because I never thought that I could use any of it for anything. I doubted myself.

As I grew older, I realized I’d have to more than likely turn into a working zombie someday. I thought at first that I wanted to build robots. It seemed incredibly fun and had practical applications. If you can remember the show Battle Bots, I wanted to make those. I wanted a killer robot that could fight battles with (or against) humans. When that idea ran its course, I turned my attention to designing rovers that could be used in interplanetary exploration. But someone else beat me to that.

Even older and now in college, I wanted to become a medical doctor. A soulless endeavor that was completely predicated on making decent money. And the academia was simple enough. That too fell out of fashion for me.

I then spent my early to mid-twenties on autopilot. I wasn’t empty inside, but I didn’t feel alive. Nothing moved me. I had a quick relationship that left me distraught for years and angry at the world. Aside from that, I was largely void of passion for anything.

Even older and now in my 30’s, I find myself slaving away on spreadsheets for the financial overlords that run the country. Another soulless endeavor that I managed to finally commit myself to. I’m not picking up women by saying what I do for a living, or turning heads. But I’m also not in jail or on the streets. It’s a completely average, middle-of-the-road life that millions of people live everyday. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it.

I’ve had my ups and downs through life. Some days, it feels like more downs than ups. Other days, it feels like more ups than downs. I think that’s pretty normal. We’ve all got our own shit, though, so I can’t speak to yours. Maybe you can sympathize with me.

But there’s one thing that’s remained constant for me my whole life: the imagination has never stopped. It’s been running wild at warp speed for years. I don’t think it’ll ever stop, and I’m thankful to whatever the powers are that granted it to me.

It’s a gift and a curse, though.

I think back to when I was a child, and I believe that I’ve only ever really wanted to be an entertainer of some kind. I wanted to be able to make something people could use to take their minds off of their bullshit for five minutes. So it’s a gift in that respect. I’ve always got ample supply of nonsense to eject from my brain. Be it on video, through music, or typed onto paper, I’ve got a lot of ridiculous things that I can spew.

But I do worry that I’ll never be satisfied. I feel like I’m chasing after something, but I have no clue what it is. And I worry that I’ll never know, and I’ll go crazy chasing whatever it is. I fear that I’ll never be able to sit down one day, look at the things that I’ve done, be proud, and say “I can stop now.” I’ll never be able to live a normal life where I get married, maybe have a kid. I’m too afraid that I’ll continue to be constantly pulled back into this blackhole that is my brain, and I won’t be able to give them the attention they deserve. So it’s a curse in this respect.

And yet, I decided to pursue this little dream anyway. I wanted to write The Days to Come after reading Red Rising by Pierce Brown. There’s a line by one of the main characters in the series. It’s one of the most famous so it should come as no surprise to anyone that’s read it.

“Live for more.”

It’s three simple words uttered at the beginning of the book that hit me like a ton of bricks and set the tone of the series for me. This dude, Pierce, managed to make me feel more emotions in the first 50 pages of his book than I’ve probably felt in a decade. And he continued to write these kinds of words that affected me in ways I couldn’t have imagined without having read them. Why was this guy able to make me feel things like this? How could his words hurt me so much? When considering it, I think he managed to achieve what I was thinking of when I was a little kid: make people forget their bullshit. Just for a little while. Get lost in something else that isn’t real so you can be free for a moment.

Inspired, I wrote this little book. I admit that it’s just my humble attempt at achieving this. Honestly, I’ll be shocked if more than 10 people buy it. But I do hope that if you read it, you get something out of it. At a minimum, you enjoy it and recommend it to a friend. Maybe they can get something out of it. Even if this goes nowhere, I’m glad I wrote it. And I’ll continue writing more anyway. My only regret is that I didn’t pay more attention in English class.

If you enjoyed The Days to Come, please be patient with me as I continue creating and writing. If you didn’t, please continue reading anyway. I promise I’ve got so much more to give and so much more growing to do as a writer. The best is yet to come, and we’ve an exciting journey ahead of us.