Sean Musial, Editor 

A good portion of people in the world consider writing a dying artform and a difficult field to get into when compared to other occupations. Whether it’s because of AI or overly saturated forms of content, writing is hard for any newcomer to gain mass recognition. Journalists, authors and screenwriters can spend years pouring their hearts and souls into something they’re passionate about to their very core with no results to back it up. The art of writing is something I will strive to improve day by day, until one day the rest of the world can eventually understand the way I shape the artform into my own worlds and stories. 

It’s a lonely process that involves picking apart ideas in your head to properly convey to the reader what you’re trying to say. Journalists take factual evidence they gather through interviews, research and fact-checking to tell the truth. Authors can take a couple of weeks or even years writing their book depending on the length, genre, scheduling and personal conflicts. Screenwriting, similar to authors, is a delicate process that can also take days to even years in this form to complete. 

Each of the three is a daunting task. It’s an accumulation of patience, persistence, poignancy and proofreading until you are comfortable with the final product. That’s part of the problem that AI has been creating. With this newly formed technology that is still advancing, it can practically minimize the hard work of an individual that takes weeks to complete and instead do it in seconds depending on the prompt you give it. The algorithm spits out a robotic word-for-word document on what you wanted with no emotional depth or human touch to it— yet people eat it up and pass it off as their own work. This is killing not only careers, but it’s jeopardizing creativity. Thoughts and words are coming from a robot, not people. 

Writing is something that has been engraved in me since I was a kid. The art that comes with telling a story, whether it’s movies or books, is something I am extremely passionate about. It started with me spending hours in my room studying what it means to convey a message to a reader. I still find random notebooks lying around my room and house filled with story concepts and cartoonish characters that I would draw. 

As I got older and started to understand where this was coming from, it became a more structured process, one that was less sporadic. The story concepts started to flow easier with more efficient planning. I planned throughout most of high school the overall ideas I wanted to convey out into the world. My friends would look over my shoulder curiously trying to figure out what I was doing. I explained it to them the best I could: I want to write books and movies for a living. When senior year came around, I got most primary concepts out of the way. I began to write even more.

I started my first book and my first pilot episode for a different story (which I later decided to turn into a book rather than a TV show). The things I write about have a wide range. The genres I tackle are as follows: coming-of-age, crime, sci-fi, fantasy, satire, dark comedy, war, historical fiction, etc. A goal of mine is to try and tackle all types by putting my own Northeast Philly/Sean Musial twang into it. 

As I’m getting older and still have this dream, continuing to try to get there, it’s difficult. I ask myself all the time, “Do I self-publish or keep on trying to get in touch with major publishing companies?” For now, I’m still aiming to get my work published by a professional publisher. I’ve been focusing on school lately but for the next couple of months, I’m going to get back in the race to get in touch with these companies. I continue to write for now, as I am starting three new books since I finished the manuscript of my first book. 

I’m an ambitious and optimistic guy. I know if it doesn’t work for me in the next couple of years, or even a decade, I’ll continue to pursue it. “Obsession beats talents” is something I heard a long time ago. You might be pretty good at something, but you’re not the best at it; yet, if I am as “obsessed” with writing as I was when I was a kid, that obsession could be a defining factor that truly gets me there some day. 

If you think writing is for you, in any type of field, go for it. Don’t listen to what others might have to say about it. Yes, there are definitely some road blocks in the way, but that should not stop the pursuit. Take me for example: I write every single day and will continue to do so. Write what you want to write about. Who knows, maybe one day the world will have the pleasure of seeing your work out there.