My First Name, My Upbringing, and Other Such Quandaries
A unique life and truly diverse experiences have blessed me, beginning with my upbringing in rural Kansas. Until reaching adulthood (at least in an age sense), I worked on our family grain farm, climbed trees, swam in creeks, and smote a good share of weeds—pretending they were monsters, evil knights, etc.
But wait! How is it I’m a man with this glorious beard, and yet, also named Jade? Why not Jayde, Jayden, or better yet, Bob? Believe it or not, I get this question a lot. The answer, my friends, is a Hudson family legend.
My father, a dwarven artisan and multi-skilled creative of renown (and sadly, not named Bob), made jewelry as a teenager. One of his favorite stones to work with was murky green jadestone. He thought the stone was “rugged and interesting.” When his first son arrived, he thought something akin to, perhaps a name like Jade will make my son rugged and interesting.
You might disagree with that logic, and my mother, who saw me as more of a Daniel, would have agreed. Yet, throughout my life, my name has done exactly what my dwarven father intended (and has in absolutely no way led to me being teased).
The moral of the story is give your kids wicked cool names—and, er—never doubt a dwarven artisan; they’re meaner than they look, and you never know what they might do with that hammer.
Awkward Segway into My Education
Being cursed with an overactive imagination at eighteen, I decided I would be a creative writing professor. Like a lot of lost souls, I dedicated the following eight to nine years trying to do that, and well… it didn’t work out the best.
Turns out, to be a professor, you’ll not get paid for a long time. Sometimes, you’ll never get paid. I decided I wouldn’t do that because I’m fond of money and the delicious foods it can purchase. What was I going to do, though?
You’d think two master’s degrees would entitle me to some decent pay somewhere, right? Wrong. Because I had schooling (and a lot of it), and also because the country was in its umpteenth recession, nobody would hire me. I honestly got turned down for a job as a Taco Bell Assistant Manager. When I was told, “You don’t have Taco Bell experience,” I asked, “Can’t you believe I’ll learn on the fly?”
My future wasn’t in burritos, so I tried my hand at being a city tax and crime newspaper reporter. It was wild and exhausting. For a while, I sold trucks, and I was actually pretty good at that. I was just unenthusiastic about it, and it didn’t feel like my destiny.
On a whim, I did some substitute teaching, which led me to working with kids struggling with disabilities. I absolutely loved their humor and found they really appreciated mine. So, I went about becoming a fully-licensed special education teacher.
For years I’ve educated students through games. We’ve built our own fantasy lore, played First Edition Pathfinder, Dungeons and Dragons, and other roleplaying games. In the process we’ve told stories, wrote poetry, and collaborated on fantasy comedy short stories.
At a school where most students struggled with hunger and poverty, we gathered for over five years of after-school roleplaying groups. The hilarity and antics of our games were inspiring. They also got me thinking, “Hey now, buddy, what if you planned a homebrew campaign but just played through it in novel format?”
Needless to say, The Alfredo sauce was simmering
In November 2023, I had an epiphany of sorts. I realized I had studied and practiced creative writing enough. It was time to stop meandering around and actually produce something. My opportunity was the 2023 NaNoWriMo challenge.
Within the scope of twenty-eight days in November 2023, I wrote a book of 50,000 words. My pacing was effective, so at the endpoint, I went even further and wrote an additional 12,000 words in the following week.
Since then, I’ve been of a single mind—to produce a five-part comedy fantasy series, with an intended audience of my goofy/geeky students and friends. What began as 62,000 words in the first month and a week has now become over 100,000 words in a year and eight months of editing. In the glistening Gem City of Dayton, Ohio, I teach, I write, and I dream. My very supportive baristas can testify to the latter two.
As I once told my friends at CalArts:
I write to entertain, and I tell stories to delight.
If people aren’t laughing or feeling great while they’re moving through my work, it isn’t doing what I want.
That still holds true today and it’s a big part of why I’m writing this series the way I am.
