Personal Essay...

The Writers Program at Universal Studios requires you write a personal essay as part of your application. Here's my first go at it.

I was born without roots, destined by my genes to wander, my main ancestry being that of Vikings -- Norwegian and Danish, with French and German mixed in. From my first year, I have constantly been on the move.

I was born in San Diego, but my parents divorced within months so I was shifted to San Antonio to live with my grandmother. When my mother remarried, it was to a non-commissioned officer in the Air Force...meaning I left even my birth name behind as we continued to change abodes -- Reno (NV), London (UK), Kansas City (MO), El Paso (TX), Grand Forks (ND), Honolulu (HI) -- bouncing back and forth to San Antonio before finally settling there.

Only I did not settle. I could not. I was too used to a different school every year or two. Different friends. Different worlds. I built a career as an artist. Changed to working in a bookshop. I went to two different colleges to get a degree in film; two different colleges for my master’s in screenwriting...which I never finished. I moved apartments and got new cars, soon as they became too familiar. Moved to New York, Austin, Houston and LA, where I continued to change apartments in search of something fresh and new. Worked in more bookstores. Worked in film. Wrote screenplays. Did storyboards. My wanderlust was incapable of being satiated.

I even refused to be encumbered by relationships. Being a gay man, there were easy ways to find pleasure without commitment...until AIDs hit and I found myself an inadvertent celibate. Then I slowly began to realize that what I was doing was hiding, deflecting, refusing to be a part of the world, keeping myself as naught but an observer.

That is when I began pouring my wishes and hopes and dreams into my writing, building characters like...well, like a 10 year-old boy who’s sabotaging the sale of his parents’ home so they can’t move, and a book cataloguer who’s hidden himself away from the world because of a family tragedy, and a fighter pilot seeking a reason to settle down, and an artist desperate for a commitment after nearly losing everything when his lover died, and an actor on the cusp of superstardom who treats his ex-wife and child like a scheduling issue. All of these characters seek something I know I will never have -- a place to belong to...someone to be part of. When I lived in LA, I almost achieved that. Almost.

I now write books and live in Buffalo (NY), handling yet another kind of job -- packing libraries and archives. I travel a great deal, which let me settle into one apartment for eight years, longer than I’ve ever lived anywhere. I'm not here long enough for it to grow too familiar. The wanderlust is held at bay because I’ve worked in places I’d never have gone to on my own -- Salt Lake City (UT), Boise (ID), Lisbon (Portugal), Munich (Germany), Hong Kong, Milwaukee (WI), Key West (FL), Albuquerque (NM), Denver (CO), Birmingham (AL), York (UK), Burlington (VT), Salisbury (UK), Portland (OR), Bangor (ME). My current career has returned me to London on many occasions, and Dublin, Derry (NI), Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, New York City, New Haven (CT), Boston. I almost feel settled here. Almost. 

But I still remain without roots...and so long as that is, my life will continue to inform my work and my work will reflect my life.

I would not...cannot have it any other way.