Once It's in Your Blood...

Just a few months ago, I was content with my role as a passive wrestling fan. I watched WWE programming once in a while with lukewarm interest, mostly to see how a few of my friends were doing and what storylines they were involved with.

An old friend said I was getting bitter towards the wrestling business. He couldn’t have been more wrong. I love wrestling, always have and always will, but I had already struck out with WWE as a writer didn’t see any future for myself in the business. I thought it would be best for me and for my family if I just stayed away from wrestling.

And I tried. I pushed wrestling to the back of my mind did what I could to leave it there. My wrestling DVD library started to collect dust. And as I finished the first draft of my latest book, The Somebody Obsession: A Nobody’s Desperate Journey to Stardom, I wrote about my relationship with wrestling as if (and believing) I’d found closure.

My passion for wrestling never died and I could still feel it inside, but I dismissed it as indigestion and moved on with my life.

Why I passed on the YA genre

A teen walks into the guidance counselor's office at school.  The kid is having a hard time finding his own way: his relationship with his parents has deteriorated and his grades have declined during the last couple years; he continues struggling to find acceptance at both home and school.  The counselor gives him that "I've got just what you need" look.  Ritalin?  Nope.  Prozac?  Nope.  She slides open her desk drawer and lifts out a paperback book.

"Read this," the counselor says.

The teen looks at the book.  "The Somebody Obsession?  You think I should become a professional wrestler?"

"Absolutely not," the counselor says, chuckling.  "But the book is about so much more than wrestling.  The guy who wrote it became a wrestler, but he has quite a journey along the way.  You should read it--I think you'll find that you have a lot in common with the author.  Just make sure I get it back when you're finished."

This was my vision.  My book, I daydreamed, would be the modern, nonfiction version of The Catcher in the Rye.  I'd be the real-life Holden Caulfield; teens would read  my story and think destiny brought them and my book together.  It would be quoted in locker-room speeches and commencement addresses, love letters and manifestos.

Like father, like son

I guess I should have seen it coming.

It's not that I don't want my son to love wrestling.  I loved it as a kid and it played an important part of my life.  But I can't help but feel a little uneasy right now.