Hi,
I’m Jackson
Hello Readers!
My name is Jackson and my dream is to share my ideas with the world. I plan to do that the best way I know how. By writing.
I want to help to change my readers’ way of thinking by sharing my ideas through my (future) books, Substacks, socials, and anything else I can think of. I want to help people see the world a little differently and help them realize that they are not alone.
The short version of my about me…
is that I am a writer from Southern California who’s endlessly fascinated by how we connect with one another. I try to write stories about love, connection, and those little moments that remind us we’re never quite as alone as we think. Stories that walk the line between reality and fantasy, trying to find my place alongside Mitch Albom, Paulo Coelho, and many of my other writing idols.
But, if you want the long version…
I had always dreamed of writing a book. But, it had never become a concrete goal until late 2021 when a friend introduced me to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The idea was simple: write 50,000 words in November — about 1,700 words a day. For anyone who, like me, had no idea what 50,000 words looks like, it is almost exactly the length of The Great Gatsby.
Anyway, I was immediately hooked. By the second week I knew that I didn’t want it to end. So I didn’t let it. For almost 4 months I woke up before the sun, wrote for as long as I could, and then began my normal workday. That was a fantastic learning experience, but that unbridled creativity and enthusiasm came with some drawbacks.
After 4 months of nonstop writing, I had written 200,000 words (the length of Moby Dick). That might seem great…but, the reality was that I was that far into a book that used a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. After hours of editing and lots of hair pulling I realized that I was in trouble. Sadly, the convoluted story points and vague determination of who the main character was were not the mark of a successful novel. So I scrapped it and started over. All that remains from that original book is the core idea and a few character names.
The next few years were spent waking up at 5 a.m. to get to the office by 6 a.m. so that I could write, edit, rewrite, read, reread, and re-edit before I had to begin work on my actual 9-5 job. The 5 am wake-up was not ideal, but it was the only time I could guarantee my mental capacity and freedom to do the thing I wanted to do. That writing and editing led to what would eventually become my first novel, Guarding Lily.
A couple of months ago, when I had finished writing Guarding Lily, and was at risk of “over-editing”, I started making a list of things I needed to do:
• Create a book cover
• Create this website
• Start a Substack
• Create social handles and start posting
• Create content for all of those things
• Send the book to an editor for feedback
• Once that comes back…make the necessary edits
…the list felt endless and was continuing to grow. And while I loved my job, no corporate job has ever gotten less busy as time has gone on. Moreover, the hours I had at the beginning of the day had begun to shrink. There was a time when arriving at the office by 6 a.m. meant I had two full hours to write, then that shrunk to an hour, and recently, it had shrunk to what felt like mere minutes.
That brings us here. As I write this, it is the first week of March, 2026. This is an important date in my life because a couple of weeks ago, I made a life-changing decision. With my supportive wife urging me on, I decided to make the impossibly difficult and terrifying decision to leave my steady corporate 9–5 job and paycheck to pursue my dream of being a writer. I knew that if I did not give this dream a real chance, I would forever look back and wonder what I could have done.
With more stories to tell and more pages to fill, I hope you’ll join me on a journey inspired by the authors who shaped my love of storytelling. Authors like Mitch Albom and Paulo Coelho, whose work straddle the worlds of reality and fantasy. The same tightrope I aim to walk in my own writing. And if I’ve done my job right, readers will close my books feeling a little lighter, a little more seen, and a little less alone.
Until Next Time,
Jackson
Hello Readers!
My name is Jackson and my dream is to share my ideas with the world. I plan to do that the best way I know how. By writing.
I want to help to change my readers’ way of thinking by sharing my ideas through my (future) books, Substacks, socials, and anything else I can think of. I want to help people see the world a little differently and help them realize that they are not alone.
The short version of my about me…
is that I am a writer from Southern California who’s endlessly fascinated by how we connect with one another. I try to write stories about love, connection, and those little moments that remind us we’re never quite as alone as we think. Stories that walk the line between reality and fantasy, trying to find my place alongside Mitch Albom, Paulo Coelho, and many of my other writing idols.
But, if you want the long version…
I had always dreamed of writing a book. But, it had never become a concrete goal until late 2021 when a friend introduced me to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The idea was simple: write 50,000 words in November — about 1,700 words a day. For anyone who, like me, had no idea what 50,000 words looks like, it is almost exactly the length of The Great Gatsby.
Anyway, I was immediately hooked. By the second week I knew that I didn’t want it to end. So I didn’t let it. For almost 4 months I woke up before the sun, wrote for as long as I could, and then began my normal workday. That was a fantastic learning experience, but that unbridled creativity and enthusiasm came with some drawbacks.
After 4 months of nonstop writing, I had written 200,000 words (the length of Moby Dick). That might seem great…but, the reality was that I was that far into a book that used a lot of words to say absolutely nothing. After hours of editing and lots of hair pulling I realized that I was in trouble. Sadly, the convoluted story points and vague determination of who the main character was were not the mark of a successful novel. So I scrapped it and started over. All that remains from that original book is the core idea and a few character names.
The next few years were spent waking up at 5 a.m. to get to the office by 6 a.m. so that I could write, edit, rewrite, read, reread, and re-edit before I had to begin work on my actual 9-5 job. The 5 am wake-up was not ideal, but it was the only time I could guarantee my mental capacity and freedom to do the thing I wanted to do. That writing and editing led to what would eventually become my first novel, Guarding Lily.
A couple of months ago, when I had finished writing Guarding Lily, and was at risk of “over-editing”, I started making a list of things I needed to do:
• Create a book cover
• Create this website
• Start a Substack
• Create social handles and start posting
• Create content for all of those things
• Send the book to an editor for feedback
• Once that comes back…make the necessary edits
…the list felt endless and was continuing to grow. And while I loved my job, no corporate job has ever gotten less busy as time has gone on. Moreover, the hours I had at the beginning of the day had begun to shrink. There was a time when arriving at the office by 6 a.m. meant I had two full hours to write, then that shrunk to an hour, and recently, it had shrunk to what felt like mere minutes.
That brings us here. As I write this, it is the first week of March, 2026. This is an important date in my life because a couple of weeks ago, I made a life-changing decision. With my supportive wife urging me on, I decided to make the impossibly difficult and terrifying decision to leave my steady corporate 9–5 job and paycheck to pursue my dream of being a writer. I knew that if I did not give this dream a real chance, I would forever look back and wonder what I could have done.
With more stories to tell and more pages to fill, I hope you’ll join me on a journey inspired by the authors who shaped my love of storytelling. Authors like Mitch Albom and Paulo Coelho, whose work straddle the worlds of reality and fantasy. The same tightrope I aim to walk in my own writing. And if I’ve done my job right, readers will close my books feeling a little lighter, a little more seen, and a little less alone.
Until Next Time,
Jackson
