Our experiences shape us…

Life consists of countless moments that may seem insignificant at the time but with hindsight gain great relevance. If I’m to connect the dots in my own life to see how I arrived at this point, I can say the first significant dot was laid when I was very young.

I grew up in a family where creating was not only encouraged, it was celebrated. To me the greatest gift we are given as children is the hunger for discovery. Everything has potential: a box can become a car, a couch a fort, a swing a rocket ship. A lot of my earliest memories are of building, crafting, drawing or creating something.

I would learn to write in kindergarten at Rountree Elementary school in Springfield, MO. From then on, I kept spiral notebooks full of my writings and made my own illustrated books—mainly about animals in those days, as we always had tons of pets growing up. I read my stories to my family and, sometimes, if my teacher would allow me, to my fellow students.

Here is one of these early stories I read aloud to my second-grade class about a band of dastardly candy bars who plunder and pillage the town of “Healthy”. Can you guess who came to the rescue? I’ll give you a hint: I was really into the “Food Pyramid” back then.

And the good guys won. Of course! In those days, the good guys always won. And there was always some kind of hidden message in my stories—still is today—something left for the reader to figure out on his own. From early on, I loved that about my favorite books, that there were certain truths left unspoken, hidden insight left to ponder well after the book was finished. And if I really liked a story, I didn’t want to just live it in my mind, I wanted to live it for real with dioramas, set pieces, costumes and my own penned sequels. My favorite books and movies were so transcendent they could never end after the last chapter or the final credit roll; they continued on in some form.

More on connecting the dots…

When I was 11, my fifth-grade class (somewhere around two hundred or so students) took our state’s standardized assessment test. We were tested on reading, writing, math and science. As it turned out, I was the only student in the entire fifth grade to receive a perfect score on the writing portion, and one of the few in the district. I was recognized in front of the other students and parents—which I thought was pretty cool—but I never gave it too much thought.

I usually received top marks on writing assignments from my teachers. That was easy, and I didn’t consider it a big deal. I loved writing stories. Now, being good at math…that was real talent. I never understood math as much as I would have liked—all those constants. In math, one plus one always equals two. But in writing, the possibilities are endless—another reason, in a long list, why I’m not an aerospace engineer.

I continued throughout high school, writing and illustrating my stories. I was really into comics at that time and wrote and illustrated my own. A lot of them had to do with samurais and noble monks and the mysteries of the Far East; I had visited Japan when I was 16, and it forever changed me. I was the treasurer of my art club, attended a summer art camp hosted by Texas Tech college, and was even in the newspaper for placing in a regional art competition that offered scholarships and other monetary prizes. To me art and writing went hand in hand. One was not too different from the other; I was still painting pictures with both.

It was my sophomore year in high school that I took another test. By the way, I hate tests! I’ve always found my greatest successes have come through the kind of hard work that is difficult to quantify in a test. Never the less, this was some kind of career aptitude test—something to help give us guidance, maybe even give us some insight into our futures.

My future…?

Believe it or not, the concept of picking a career never occurred to me. I know many think about this at an early age, but not once did it cross my mind what I was going to be when I “grew up”. All through high school, I always had a job. I was on the work program and got to leave class early to operate a monster-of-a printing press for the school district (one of those old off-setting models with aluminum printing plates and tons of rollers that needed inking). But it was only a job, something that would afford me the things all teenage boys dream of buying at that age. I certainly never equated anything I did then to something that would resemble some sort of career later on.

I always had many interests. It would be an impossible task to pick just one of them for a career. I had never considered not doing the same things I’d always done up until then: writing and illustrating my stories. I also loved creating strategy games and was very big into motorcycles and martial arts. I worked incessantly on all my hobbies as though I were already getting paid to do them. Maybe this career aptitude test could help me. How I wish I had connected the dots back then, but I wouldn’t until much later. Nor would I realize just how important this test was.

The results of the test were conclusive: I should pursue a career as a writer. More precisely, it told me I was extremely well suited for writing, as well as art. There wasn’t even a close second. But, because I already considered myself a writer, I didn’t think this earthshattering news at the time. It would seem connecting the dots is not so easy—at least at that time it wasn’t.

I think we never outgrow our youth. Not if we’re honest with ourselves. The things we enjoyed when we were younger are many of the same things we enjoy today. Part of being successful is knowing that who you are and what you want is almost always one in the same. And the more you can do the things you want to do, the more you become who you were meant to be and the more successful you are, right?

When I was a senior, a representative of the Art Institute of Dallas came to my high school art class and pitched us on the idea of being computer animators. It sounded exciting, and I was at a point in my life where I needed someone to give me options. Had an architect or a novelist come to speak to us instead, I could have easily had a different life trajectory. But all roads eventually lead to the top of the mountain.

I never dreamt about becoming a computer animator. Honestly, it had never occurred to me. My high school never offered any kind of career advice, besides that one aptitude test. I can’t even recall ever having a career day at school. I always loved art, though, almost as much as writing. They both told stories.

I think some find exactly what it is they want to do early on. And there are some who don’t find out until later. And then there are others, like me, who knew all along what they should be doing, but either lacked the means to do it at the time or the understanding of how to pursue it as a career. I always wanted to be a writer, but being an animator, that seemed thrilling too. Besides, I could still write on the side.

I became a successful computer animator…

As soon as I graduated college, I was hired by a well-known company and immediately began working in film and television. I was privileged enough to work on an Oscar-nominated movie early in my career (one of the greatest experiences of my life), as well as many other high-profile projects. I can honestly say, when it comes to the animation industry, I’ve worked with some of the best there are. Below is a picture of me with my cube-mates on my first feature film:

Each one of us defines our own success because, at the end of the day, success is entirely subjective. I knew I would find success in whatever I did, if not for the simple fact that I work tirelessly on anything I set my mind to. But at that point in my life, I felt something was missing. Work was demanding, and it left little time for me to do any writing—something I had always done. I tried to squeeze it in, but it was nearly impossible with the kind of hours we worked back in those days. It was an exciting time, but it was incredibly frustrating too.

It wouldn’t be until years later that I would leave computer animation behind to focus entirely on writing. I love to tell stories; it’s who I am. Connecting the dots in my life, everything was centered around storytelling. I know it is what drew me to animation and eventually directing, producing and teaching, but literature is what I’ve always loved most. And like other writers, painters, architects, engineers, etc., I have been affected so profoundly by an artform that there is no other option but to dedicate my life to it.

What I think makes good writing, and good art for that matter, has more to do with honesty than anything else. The best work in any medium is unapologetically honest: it’s vulnerable without being cringy; it’s heroic without being bombastic; it’s sad, unintentionally, and it’s forever optimistic and insightful without being too preachy.

Styles are first formed by copying those who did it first—those worthy enough to copy—but at some point there is a switch, entirely unintentional, and the artist begins to create in their own way, with their own voice, and without any inhibitions. This is when magic happens. But it only happens if you are honest with yourself and your work and understand the reason for doing what it is you do.