The Sentence That Stopped Me From Writing for 26 Years

When I was fifteen years old, I wrote a full-length novel. I wouldn’t start writing another one for another 26 years.

Uh…why not?

My dad was a semi-well-known comic book and animation writer and sometimes when we checked into hotels or were at restaurants, a desk clerk or waiter that were big fans of Warren Publishing, where he wrote most of his stories, would see his name on his credit card and actually ask, “Bill DuBay? Are you the Bill DuBay?” My dad lived for these moments and he would tell almost everyone we came across about these encounters.

So maybe some part of me wanted people to say the same thing to me. “Bill DuBay? Are you the Bill DuBay?” I mean why not, we had the same name after all. Maybe there’d be a “Jr.” tacked to the end of it but to me, that way was the path to success.

Back then, I was an enthusiastic martial arts student. I used to go to Simon Rhee’s Taekwondo on Fallbrook in The Valley every day. In one of the classes, I ended up doing a flying spinning kick and landed with my full weight on my right big toe, which as you can imagine is not the most optimal way to land such a kick.