Also, I took every opportunity to write business articles and volunteer for industry speaking opportunities. I took snippets of free time to write on planes and in hotel rooms. During that time, I continued my writing endeavors by keeping a journal of my stories that I carried with me on business trips. But through persistence and hard work, I was fortunate to achieve success, and progressed through leadership roles and eventually became a senior vice president. I expected my career in corporate America to be temporary. But when faced with the reality of paying my own bills, I gratefully accepted a job with a large property & casualty insurance company. The first was to someday become an author, and a distant second was to own my own business. When graduating, I made a list of my top two dream careers. But during college, I didn’t abandon my passion for writing I used my elective courses to enroll in literature and creative writing classes. Influenced by an entrepreneurial father-who owned two small grocery stores, claimed to have walked uphill both ways to school, and believed that his military service was a cakewalk when compared to working on his parents’ farm-I chose a path to study business at Bowling Green State University. And as I look back, I think I could have gotten a better deal if I’d had an agent.

I have my mother to thank for this wonderful memory. But when my relatives arrived for dinner, I managed to sell my literary masterpiece, damp with correction fluid, to my Uncle John for twenty-five cents. Over the next hour, I typed-using two fingers-a poorly constructed tale. To keep me occupied, Mom retrieved an old typewriter, paper, and a bottle of White-Out, and she asked me to write a story.

She and my father were preparing dinner while a medley of Tom Jones, Neil Diamond, and Engelbert Humperdinck albums spun on a stereo, and I was getting in the way by playing in the kitchen.

When I was eight-years-old, Mom created an enduring experience for me on a cold Thanksgiving afternoon. She bought me loads of books, and she would often sit patiently with me as I read aloud, fumbling through sentences. My mother, an artistic woman and voracious reader, instilled in me a passion for music, reading, and writing. My publishing journey was incubated by childhood experiences.

The Long Flight Home by Alan Hlad