Guest Bog Post with Jake Keet

Jake's taking over today to tell us about how writing improved his life. Take a gander below! /S.


Why does anybody set out to write? Is it to seek out fame and fortune? Is it to seek tacit approval of the deepest thoughts and commentaries you keep in the back of your mind? Is it to right the wrong of some horrible injustice? Is it to help others feel better about their own lives?



In my opinion, writers tend to write simply because nothing else quite feels like the process of writing. It is basically a release of creative energy to sustain you until your next release of creative energy. Whether you are writing non fiction and telling the world about all the mean things people said to you as a kid, or writing fiction about all the mean things people said to you as a kid doesn’t really matter. What matters to the writer is the release. After that is trying to shape that into something that people will find worthy of actually spending the time to check out.

For myself, I work a good amount in the restaurant industry. I currently own and operate six restaurants with my father and my brother. I have a sweet and lovely wife, Stephanie, and a son, Holden (yes- it is a throwback to Salinger.) They fill my life to the brim with excitement and joy. There are of course times where anything is work (whether it is covering a shift for a manager who fell sick or cleaning up some awful mess your kid made,) but I would argue that I live a blessed life. We all have our health and are good law abiding tax paying citizens.

So, why did I spend two and a half years working on my first novel when everything else is going well and demands a lot of focus to keep going well?

Basically, I was sitting with my wife and I had an idea flash through my brain that I thought was pretty clever. It made me laugh. After about an hour and a half or so I had my first outline of what would become The Disposable Assassin.  I didn’t realize that it would take me two and a half years to get it right. That seems like an incredible amount of time to be working on a book, but don’t worry because it was not work at all.

In my opinion, writing is my fun and strange little hobby. Some people are professionals at it and God Bless them because I think it would be a difficult job to constantly feel inspired. As for myself, I enjoyed every minute of writing my first novel, because I did not pick up the pen and start making notes until I was inspired to write a scene. That means there were dry spells where I did not write a line of my book for months. I just waited and thought about it in the background. After gathering my thoughts for long enough, the course of action taken in the book would seem to show itself.

This system may not work for everybody. I know that Philip Roth for example writes every single day, no matter what. I think that is pretty awesome. For myself, I enjoy writing when I have something to put down. It has improved my life dramatically to have a creative release. The same thing happens when you write a song. You go, “Hey! I did that!” and if it sounds good to you then you nailed it. I am currently working on the sequel to The Disposable Assassin and look forward to forcing my friends and book club to read it. That is the other part of being a writer that is awesome. The narcissistic part.