This is Are-Lit.​

Are-Lit is a literary blog.

I write because I love to read. I read to learn to write.

Writing is therapeutic but…

…messy. The process makes me wonder if I’m indeed cut out to be a writer: the voice, character development, world building, dialogue, structure, sensory details, and edit after edit after edit.

I used to think, “The first time I get published will be the day all my writing doubts will disappear.” I’ve seen my stories in print three times, and I still read through them picking at what I should’ve done better.

The reader deserves the best experience.

When someone takes a few seconds to comment on how a piece taught them a new stylistic choice, made them remember a unique time in their lives, or feel something new, it makes all those hours spent drinking coffee, rewriting, and reading out loud, a million times more purposeful.

The struggle behind-the-scenes contributes to what your final piece becomes. This process has inspired me to create this blog where I can share my own process, teach the craft, talk about fiction/nonfiction books and experiences that keep me wanting and writing more, and, most of all, welcome a community of hardworking writers.

I wasn’t around other writers until I went away to college. Before then it was usually just me. I started taking my writing more seriously around the time I moved to Butterfield, MN from Chicago, IL.

I asked the school about any writing programs or clubs they had and there were none. The town was made up of five hundred people, and it was strange to think of myself as the only writer. I was the only openly one, I guess.

My older brother had been killed that summer, and I carried around the last honest conversation we had.

He had just gotten back home from getting high, and I treated him to the best gelatina de leche. I sat on the floor against his bed, writing in my journal, while he devoured the Jell-O. When he was finished, he told me it hit the spot, and I just smiled.

Then he started talking about writing and how I could and should make it a career.

“You can write books, TV shows, movies… You can be the next Steven Spielberg.”

When I won the Young Authors competition in sixth grade with a thriller short story, he reacted a lot more proudly then I expected.

He smiled, “You won? For reals?”

I nodded repeatedly. Danny gave me 20 bucks I knew he could’ve used for weed and I got us internet.

Reading gives you exposure to a perspective you can relate to or learn to understand. Writing makes you feel too many things at once.

I want to share it with you.