The conception of TWIG

      Feb. the 2nd in Nashville, TN I will be auditioning for the Voice.  I have been in love with music since I was very small and my dad always had me in a studio doing his recordings.  I fell in love with what music could do.  I have always had a heart for others and music is not limited to one type of person.  It is a universal medicine that can instantly change the atmosphere of a room.  So when February arrives and I stand in front of the producers and sing, it will be an expected journey.  I will be excited and nervous of course, but it is something I sought after for a while. 

     Writing on the other hand, at least writing books, was completely unexpected.  I never thought about doing it, and it never once crossed my mind as something I'd be good at or would enjoy.  Honestly it was a simple thought, one that wasn't miraculous or brilliant, that drove me to write.  I thought out loud one day, 'Hey, there should be a book about a stick that falls out of his family tree.'  I know, just a simple play on words that a child could have thought up, and at first that's all that I made of it.  Something strange happened though and I'll never understand why.  As I was working as a forklift driver in Charlotte, NC I found myself thinking about this silly little stick.  Something about it just would not go away.

     As I pushed it to the back of my mind several more times, it always reemerged.  I only had the one thought, not a complete story and I belittled the idea by saying it was silly.  That is until me and my wife went to an adoption agency.  She was unable to carry a child for me and adoption seemed like the perfect fit.  It was in that office, discussing the number of children that needed a family, that my heart broke for those children.  Kids of adoption are completely helpless in the situation and it's not their fault.  It was then that I knew that that silly little stick that I couldn't forget about was more than a mere idea, but something that embodied the condition in which these children were living in. 

     Unsure of how to even start the story I spoke with my wife and the engines started turning.  The story of Twig was written in less than a day, but I had sat on the idea for 3 years before it was written.  I have since fallen in love with writing and now feel like I have just one more tool to reach people.  I learned that sometimes you don't have to have the best idea in the world.  You just have to have the ability to follow through with what your vision is.  I hope that in doing so myself that someone will find comfort in this simple, but sweet story of a Twig that only wants what we all should never be without, a family.  I also hope that if you're reading this, that you will never short yourself in life because you feel what you are doing is insignificant.  Because everything matters to someone, and I hope just as I have ever so  un-expectantly done, that you find what matters to you.