Author, Dungeon Master, Speaker
Why I Write
Welcome to A Dungeon Master Exposed. If you’ve never heard of Dungeons and Dragons or don’t know what a TTRPG is, I may not be the kind of dungeon master you seek. But since you’re here, you may as well stick around—I will occasionally talk about leather armour and whips.
Speaking of leather armour and whips, I’ve been thinking a lot about when I started reading comic books. I’m not sure when it started…my mom has a tale of me teaching myself to read while on a Greyhound Bus for two and a half days going from Winnipeg to Kelowna. As the legend goes, she gave me a stack of comics when the ride started and by the time we were in the mountains, I was reading them on my own. I’m not sure how much of that is true or embellished, but it’s really my mom’s story so choose I believe it.
From my earliest memory, I have loved the graphic interface for telling stories. It truly feels as though comics have always been a part of my life. From those summer trips riding the Greyhound bus, my go to comics were Archie, Casper, Wendy the Good Little Witch, Richie Rich–funny, light, and not scary. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties when I was working as a graveyard shift security guard when a coworker loaned me a Batman comic, that I started reading about the caped crusader. There was something that spoke to me in those dark pages that I couldn’t have expressed that connected me to the dark knight.
I read voraciously.
Created in 1939 by writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane, Batman was developed as a follow-up to the successful Superman character. However, it takes a much different approach. The story revolves around a boy who grows up with a great deal of trauma, and his caretaker, Alfred, unfortunately, never seeks help for him. To cope with this trauma, Bruce Wayne creates two identities: a socialite persona he believes others expect of him and the masked crusader, representing his true self.
I wonder if Bill Finger realized his words would ignite a worldwide fascination with a comic book hero. Or that the origin story would be reimagined over the course of 86 years and counting. Whether it was intentional in their writing or not, readers connect with the character of Wayne on a fundamental level, resonating with themes of undiagnosed trauma, the desire for healing through purpose, and the tendency to mask one’s true self to fit in. What inspired Finger and Kane to create such a character? I often think about the origins of ideas and the process the author took in creating them.
When people ask about my writing journey, I’m asked, “What inspired you to become an author?” Asking someone with ADHD a question like that is somewhat like asking Batman why he dresses like a bat. Batman probably hadn’t thought much about his origin story, but when pressed he came up with a pretty impressive answer. When I was first pressed with this question, I, too, came up with a pretty good answer. But to understand how I came up with my origin story, you first have to understand how ADHD relates to time.
Dr Russell Barkley calls ADHD an impairment of time function. ADHD, being a disability of executive function, causes the brain to not feel time pass. It’s as though you are either stuck in the same moment seemingly forever or you have no memory of the time having passed at all. To put it more simply, as someone with ADHD, I relate to two distinct moments in time: the now and the not now.
The past is just a blur of impulsive decisions that have steered me along a foggy path I don’t often reflect on. As for the future, it hasn’t happened yet and doesn’t exist, so my brain has no interest in what it might look like.
Stupid brain.
This may be how Bruce Wayne felt when becoming Batman. That inciting incident of watching his parent’s murder was his “now” time that started his path down to becoming the caped crusader. Had he put any thought into what a future might look like for him as a vigilante watching the streets from the rooftops, he may have reflected on much better ways of solving the social issues affecting Gotham. Instead, that tragic moment as a kid became the “now” he stayed focused on while shutting himself off to the rest of the world.
And then so much time passes that when Wayne is asked why he’s chosen to focus his life on dressing like a bat he flounders out, “Bats. They scare me. I fell in a well,” Much like Bruce Wayne, I have tried to piece together an author-origin story from my memories. I remember entering a picture book I had written into a young author’s contest as early as grade four. My idea was heavily influenced by a comic about a witch, a pumpkin, and Halloween. It told the story of a mouse and an elephant living on an island’s opposite sides. The mouse longed to see the other side. During its journey, it became dark, and the only thing the mouse could find was a pumpkin. It carved holes into the pumpkin to place a candle inside, lighting the way. (I have no idea where the mouse got the candle or the knife—give me a break. After all, I was only ten years old.)
In fifth grade, I began drawing little furry creatures inspired by my fascination with the Smurfs, which I called “Fuzzies.” I wrote a second picture book featuring these characters in an adventure titled “Fuzeet Fuzzy and Fuzoot Fuzzy Go Camping.” I was lucky to win a spot in that year’s Young Authors Contest.
As cool of an origin story as that might have been, that’s not what made me decide to be an author. I didn’t know I wanted to be a writer back then. At that age, I think I dreamed of being a farmer. Even when I was 16, after writing two novellas inspired by playing Dungeons and Dragons, I still had no idea I wanted to be an author. I wrote because I felt different from my friends and I was trying to find a way to express myself.
When “Rancour” was published in 2005 by Simply Read Books, I created an origin story for the writer James McCann. I introduced him at schools, conferences, and book events. This origin story was my answer to, “What inspired you to become an author?” I talked about those books I wrote as a kid. How I got into Dungeons and Dragons. How I loved comic books and how I wasn’t a reader growing up. It was a humble beginnings to an extraordinary person tale that seemed to fit as a good answer.
I don’t think I ever consciously decided to be a writer. I remember wanting to be a cartoonist at one point, an actor at another, and a writer of some sort, but the path that led me here isn’t entirely clear. What I would learn much later in life, is that my reading issues as a teenager wasn’t that I hated reading but that I couldn’t sustain interest in reading for very long. I also had trouble with task initiation, so the act of picking up a book and reading it was very difficult. But much like how Batman would forgo sleep and food once something caught his interest so was I when I became excited about a task. I read all the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons manuals cover to cover, became involved with the drama program at my school, and I ran my own BBS–a predecessor to the webpage pre-Internet.
Throughout my life, I have explored a variety of jobs. I’ve been a security guard, a bookseller, a dog groomer, and I’ve worked in an animal shelter. Additionally, I served as an elementary school librarian, a library technician, and a library clerk. After repeating grade 12, I began an apprenticeship in auto mechanics. I have taken two out of three years of a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre, part of a two-year course in Small Business Development, and three-quarters of a Library Technician diploma. However, every time I get close to finishing a program, I struggle to retain information. I often complained about exams during school because, despite knowing the material thoroughly, I would blank out at the moment of the test. I also felt anxious when submitting papers, worrying that my work might be accused of plagiarism, even though I had no reason to doubt my integrity. This anxiety often led to sleepless nights and heightened impulsive behaviour. This is the dark side of undiagnosed ADHD.
“What inspired you to become an author?” What inspired me to sell six books to publishers and self-publish one on my own? Or teach creative writing classes as a contractor for seventeen years? Or serve as the president of CWILL, my province’s organization for children’s writers and illustrators, for three years? I don’t know. The better question is why during those successes did I feel like a failure who can’t complete anything I start. Before my ADHD diagnosis, I believed my struggles were due to one reason: I was lazy. Or stupid. Or unmotivated. Or any of the other thoughtless things people have said to me throughout my life in an attempt to motivate me.
When I did start finding some success as a writer I hid behind an embellished version of myself because I believed this version was more likable than what I saw as the unmotivated, lazy, and uninspired part of me that I wanted to hide. I felt like an imposter. It didn’t matter that, at one point, I was working full-time in a bookstore, enrolled in part-time college classes, writing a book, and teaching two classes a week—all at the same time. I still felt like a failure who wasn’t doing enough. Undiagnosed ADHD isn’t just losing your keys because you placed them in the fridge when you needed to grab your lunch on the way to work. (And now you’re late for work because you can’t find your keys…)
When I read Batman comics now, I wonder if Bruce Wayne has ADHD. When a crime needs to be investigated, he gets so focused that he forgets to eat or sleep. Personal relationships get put on hold, and when Alfred attempts to change the subject he doesn’t notice he just keeps talking about that current fascination. Plus, have you ever noticed he doesn’t try and stop petty crimes–only the ones that really excite him? The Joker, The Riddler, The Penguin. Not Joey’s stolen bike or the missing cat. He wants the thrill.
But what would Bruce Wayne do if he ever got to the point where being Bruce Wayne was enough? What if he realized he could do more good in his life by not being Batman and just being his authentic self? What if Bruce Wayne had found a good therapist and medication that helped his brain function in a way that he was motivated not only to find the Joker but also to return Joey’s bike and the missing cat. Or use his billions to break down barriers for people who weren’t born rich…
What if Bruce Wayne’s self-esteem healed in a way that he no longer needed to be Batman?
I experienced this firsthand at a writer’s conference while dining at a restaurant with other writers last spring. While everyone discussed their upcoming projects or shared updates on their current ones, I kept to myself and listened. I hadn’t worked on anything related to writing for almost a year. I knew that if I tried to join the conversation, I would have to admit that and perhaps acknowledge that I didn’t belong there. Eventually, the discussion turned to me when someone asked, “What have you been working on?”
“Me,” I said without hesitation. “I’ve spent the last year working on me and my mental health.”
Something incredible happened: I found people who share similar views and experiences. We discussed mental health and what it’s like to be diagnosed as an adult with a disability that has affected us invisibly throughout our lives. We also discussed our interests beyond writing—like sports, Dungeons and Dragons, and creating cool projects. One person even suggested that I start a podcast about this journey. It felt like the beginning of my transformation into leaving Batman behind to fully embrace being Bruce Wayne—though a less wealthy, shorter, but better-emotionally-adjusted version.
And finally, I can answer the age-old question I’ve been asked since I began my writing journey in 2005: What inspired you to become an author?
Simply put, I don’t know. I don’t know what inspired me or why I continue to do it. Why I started and why I continue are in the not-now time of the past and future. I have no idea what drives me or what my goals are. I can share something more important than the reasons behind my past decisions or my future goals. I can explain why I keep writing in the now-time.
In the past two years I’ve lost two very important people in my life: an uncle who was like a dad to me and a step-dad who treated me like a son. Their passing taught me that at the end of our days we are the stories we lived. We aren’t remembered for the things we bought, or the trinkets we cherished, or how big our bank accounts were. Unless, of course, those things can be told as a story. Because we are all stories. We are all main characters, we are all secondary characters, and we are all just background. And when we pass our stories can easily pass with us and then we truly disappear.
But when we share one another’s stories, we bring each other back to life. Through storytelling, we can rediscover hope, joy, love, and laughter. And we can spread that to one another–and these days finding hope, joy, love and laughter is more important than ever. It’s those moments when the world feels overwhelmed with despair and burdened with hopelessness that we need to remind ourselves why we press on. A story can do that.
When I get to the end of my days, it won’t matter what inspired me to be an author. What will matter are the stories I tell and I’m going to tell as many as I can. And I’ll do it as authentically as I can. Because as the late Jack Layton once wrote, “My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.”
And with that, I’ll say thanks for listening to A Dungeon Master Exposed—and hopefully, I am the kind of dungeon master you’re looking for.
