Author D.Zenn

This is my first blog post, I’m just gonna jump right in, because that’s how you move forward. You can plan, research, practice, talk about, take all the courses, dream all you want but nothing actually happens until you dive in. 

I wanted to be a writer when I was in kindergarten. I drew picture books during recess, stapling them together to bind them (at least that’s how I remember it… did they let kindergartners use staplers back then? Probably… we didn’t have seatbelts or no smoking zones back then either.) I had this idea of being the youngest author at 8 years old. But no one read my writing or encouraged me. They only saw my drawing and labeled me an artist, so I became an artist/illustrator. 

Went to college with the plan to write and illustrate my own books. The college had different ideas. They wanted to train me to get a job… any job. I was forced to study all these different options (copywriting? silkscreen? fashion illustration, which is not at all the same as regular illustration) nothing to do with book and print media illustration. So I approached the faculty with an independent study program for myself. It was approved but the professor they stuck me with had no understanding of children’s literature. My book was going to be about a child who visits grandparents in Florida, sneaks home an alligator egg that turns out to be a dragon who gets flushed down the toilet into the sewers of New York City. This was a picture book. The professor wanted to know “what’s the reason, the motivation, for the trip to Florida…?” Umm… to visit the Grandparents? Does the kid reading the book really need to know Grandpa is getting forgetful and Grandma got scammed by a door to door encyclopedia sales man? (yeah, that was a thing before the internet, but not in this story) 

Anyhoo, Readers Digest version; I never finished the program, graduated and became a professional illustrator, took many short term jobs and picked up random skills, lost my portfolio on the way to yet another freelance interview, took it as a sign that freelancing was not for me (constantly hunting for a job, getting it, completing it and having to hunt again for the next gig), started my own business, failed at that business (but not really because I learned to run a retail business), got married, started a new business (on a whim, saw a space available, asked how much, said “I’ll take it!” without ever having run a store before) became the first anime only collectibles store on the east coast (before anime went mainstream), closed it and went online only when my first born decided she would not nap and only scream in the cozy baby-nook I created for her at the shop, had another kid, decided to open a new store when he was 3 so I could interact with adults again, closed again (still online though) to take care of personal/family life while getting amicably divorced (better to alone than to be with someone and lonely) and then…finally… I dug out some adventures I’d written in the 90s, realized this shit was actually good and reworked and expanded it into a series and became the person my kindergarten self wanted me to be. 

And if you are still reading this… I must be pretty okay at the whole writing thing. 

I didn’t know what I wanted to write as my first blog post, but I jumped in and here we are. At the risk of sounding like a retro athletic ad campaign, if you want to do something… Just Do It!