Why do people write, or read for that matter, what is the point in wasting your time, when you could be working making real money?

That has been said to me many times, and I feel that those people miss the point.

In 1994 I took a five day holiday, I was exhausted, but I worked for a company where the boss had told me a good few times. “Your job will always be safe with us; we will never let you go.”

At that time, I really needed to hear that, oh, no one really has any idea how much that meant to me. I had worked hard long hours for that company and given it my all, I would even say I gave the best of me to that place. I loved the place, I adored the job, and I cared very deeply for the people I worked with.

I had holidays owed to me, because I never really wanted to take any, I loved working there so much. In the six months prior to my holiday, I had separated from my partner, it was not an easy breakup, and I became a single parent, and I will not deny, the pressure of working and not letting my employer down, raising a young girl alone, and juggling the bills I had discovered after my partner left, was taking its toll on me.

 The breakup had been hard and very stressful, not just on me, but also on my daughter, I still feel it had a huge negative impact on her life, and changed her forever. When told I had to take a holiday or lose the days, I took it, and had a week alone in Wales with my daughter and rested, it was really needed.

I arrived back in work a week later on the Monday, and five minutes later, I was unemployed, and so shocked, I could hardly speak. Saying goodbye to everyone was soul crushing for me, and having to walk away from a place I loved dearly, destroyed me completely. I have never forgotten that moment as I walked out of the gates and looked back across the small bridge, and I swore to myself that after the betrayal I felt, I would never give my all to anyone else again. From that moment onwards, I would only work for me, and I have been true to that vow since.

Life got hard after that, and I struggled to survive, and yet, even though my confidence crashed and I fought like hell to stay afloat through what became a really bad bout of depression, I manged to do what I did best at the time. I saved all my spare change, propagated plants, and slowly built a business that was for me. Against the odds I fought like hell to survive, and in my spare time, I attended night school to occupy my mind. One other thing I did, was I wrote stories, one in particular, after all, when you have worked from dawn until dusk for years, being out of a job, you suddenly have a lot of spare time.

In many ways it was therapeutic, and today, I really do feel that it saved me. It certainly helped restore my sanity, and my devastated feelings, and slowly my confidence began to grow, as writing my thoughts down on paper, brought me back to life. I actually wrote a journal, about my whole life, which was thousands of pages long, and when finished, I burned it. What I learned from that experience, was the true meaning of facing the truth, and it became a big part of the way it would shape me for my future. I learned to be free, and lose the fear, especially when writing.

Night school taught me counselling and psychology, as did online courses. Daytime allowed me the space to build up stock for a new horticultural business, and spare moments and weekends gave me time to write, and slowly, between 1994, and 2005 I got my life back together. My business was not easy to build, I had so little cash to start with, but as a plant propagator, I had skill and knowledge, and so used it, until I had five thousand British pounds of good quality stock. It was then, I started to book market stalls, and began trading. I built the business up very slowly, it was a tough time, and I was not rich, but there again, I had lived on almost nothing, so the money I made, whilst not a lot, was far more than I was used to. Finally in the early 2000’s, I took on a wooden Market building, and fitted it out with an investment of my own cash.

I started counselling in my spare time, in a voluntary capacity to help kids, which as I learned more skills and got more training, I moved into sexual dysfunction, relationships and abuse, and I always worked for free. I have never charged any client, I saw them as the victims, why would I charge them, when it was the abuser who should pay? Once again, I was laughed at, and told. “You should charge, you are an idiot, you could be rich.” Those people had no idea at all about the value of life, and owning your own.

Through all of it, I wrote, a little here, and new idea there, and slowly over many years, one story in particular really gripped my imagination, hell it still does, I am still writing things for it behind the scenes.

The one thing I will say without hesitation, is that since 1994, no matter what I have done, and as many people who have laughed at me will tell you, I never did any of it for money, I did it because that was simply what I wanted to do. I have never forgotten the helplessness I felt stood in that office after a holiday I was forced to take, and being told, the job I loved so dearly, was being taken away from me. Ironically, it was by the same man who had promised I would never lose it. I knew then, no one would ever have that power over me again, and since that day, they haven’t.

In 2006 the local council told me I was losing my tenancy because they wanted to pull down the market and build a garden style public square, how ironic, they booted the gardener out, and again I had to face reality, and I will not deny, I was pissed off, and so I fought the local council, and everyone laughed and told me, you will lose everything, I just laughed back, and told them, I know, but I will do it anyhow.

They were right, I lost almost all my savings and ended up with a garden full of stock, and yet smiled, I had been here before. Luckily for me, in 2006, I also began to write my story, the one that had been stuck in my head for such a long time. A friend of mine got to read it, and told everyone it was amazing. I told him, I have no hope of publishing it, he laughed at me and told me, do it anyway, so I did.

I shocked everyone who knew me, by announcing, “I am giving up horticulture and walking away from it.” It left them speechless, and some even laughed at me and told me, “You are so stupid, it is your life, everyone knows you are the go to guy for plants, what is wrong with you, are you deliberately trying to ruin your life?” I shrugged it off, I was done with life, I was tired and weary of the long hard hours, the freezing cold wet days, and I wanted more out of life than I was getting. If I was going to do something that sucked up all of my day, it was going to be something that gave me a restful peace, and the freedom to live as I wanted. So I published a book.

The publisher charged almost all my savings, and I ended screwed and never got a single penny in royalties, so I cancelled my agreement, and told those around me, sod it, I will publish my own books. In 2013, I sat down and started to learn as much as I could on how to publish a book, it took a while, but on January 1^st 2014, I launched my imprint VCP, and did a full rewrite of my own works, and put them out. Again, I invested everything I had left in the bank, crossed my fingers and hoped to hell it worked, as I was really close to the wire and this time, I had nothing to fall back on.

I am still here eight years later, am I rich? Nope, do I care? Nope. Why?

I am a writer, and I learned something very important, as I faced all the trials of my life. What I learned, was betrayal from family, employer, and friends, false promises, fake personalities, people pleasing, guilt, lust, desire, greed, power, conceit, arrogance, shaming, fighting, simple living, survival, anxiety, dark thoughts, temper, abuse, victimisation, bullying, and a thousand other things. I had the advantage of a window into so many other peoples lives, as well as my own. I did not realise at the time, how important each of those moments of learning would become to my future.

When I was ten, my grandfather sat me down with a copy of Ivanhoe, and made me read it out loud to him. Watching him sat listening to me read, is still one of my fondest memories of him. I loved how he would occasionally smile, or nod his head, and the way the story impacted on him, and it made me a reader forever. It was not always easy, I do have dyslexia, and at times I confuse words and get mixed up, but it has never stopped me reading, and I have struggled to overcome it all my life.

I love Phillip Pulman, Arthur Conan Doyle, Tolkien, John Windham, H. G. Wells, and countless other writers work, and I have read thousands of books throughout my life. I learned to love stories of life, and my wonderful English Teacher from school, Miss Casey, inspired me to read more. To Kill a Mockingbird, Roots, 1984, A Brave new world, The Chrysalids, they changed me forever. I understand now, they also taught me something, they taught me what a good story is like for the reader. It has to be honest, written straight from the hip, and confrontational if needs be, and it has to also be alive with wonder, and suddenly I understood something very important.

At age 44, I knew a good story, and understood life better than anyone realised, and finally, something that had been more of a hobby in my past, became the focus of my life to come. You see, I love day dreaming and making up stories, and I love people watching and listening to their own stories of the lives they live. I absolutely love writing them down, and armed with a life seen as filled by mishaps by others, and working with hurt broken people, I had an arsenal of information built perfectly for my future, because I aimed to be writer forever, and now at 58 years old, I am.

The first job I mentioned, taught me how to use arrogance, complacency, greed, betrayal, and survival. It taught me the value of friendship and comradery, and the humour we bounce off each other working in difficult conditions. Being alone raising a child who hated me for throwing her mum out, taught me loneliness and dealing with the stress and pressure of taking care of others. It became Heirs to the Kingdom.

My fight with the council and some of their dirty tricks, taught me about those who felt entitled by their position, and how they abuse people because they were so ruthless, they can toss them away without a care. It all made HTTK even better, and it added such a powerful weight to the lead characters, that they walked off the pages like real people to those who read it.

My time as counsellor, taught me abuse, shame, victimisation, sexual behaviours and practices, manipulation and self hatred, and it became the foundation of The Curio Chronicles. It really gave me an insight into a life behind closed doors very few knew about, and has allowed me to follow the life of my character Abigail and some of her friends, as they go through life against a community that is set against them. I can hold up a mirror to modern society and show the real truth, behind the fake morality of this day and age. Why, because I have lived there.

A bad first long term relationship taught me the real pain and anguish of betrayal. Control of an arrogant boss, lies and deceit, combined with a corrupt council, gave me everything I needed to work into the dark fantasy of Rise of the Raven. The battle of Branna to stay true to her word, and fight through the darkness for Ariel. Her hatred for the fake image of Rhiannon, I have lived that and seen it, for me it was real and painful. For Branna, it became her story to overcome the dark to keep her love for Ariel alive and strong.

In 2007 I met a young woman, an artist, a reader and a creative person, and she changed my life. Her example became parts of Runestone, Jade and Jett. She inspired Abigail, Birch and Chloe, and also played a role in the relationship of Ariel and Branna. She added to the value of the person I was, and she became my wife. The daughter we had, has been an inspiration for other characters, and again it has all added to my later life as a writer. Not one day passes that I do not sit back and consider myself to be man of great wealth, and yet I have very little in the bank.

Nine years ago, I lost someone very special and very significant to me, and it is something that had a huge impact on my life, I have never quite recovered from the blow. I have not often spoke about it, some say I should deal with it and get over it, and I have continued to live my life as normally as possible. That aspect of me will appear in small parts of a story I have been working on for several years, and although no one will really know which parts, it has helped me to write it. Once again, my teacher and instructor of writing, are those I have read, and those who have impacted my life. Not that long ago I was told. “You need to make more money, you will never be rich writing, do something more valuable to society.” I simply smiled, at stupid they sounded to me.

I am a writer, nothing more, and I love it. I have been called a dystopian writer, a fantasy writer, even a writer of kink, which made me laugh. I have books in the fiction, Arthurian, LGBT, battle, magic, fantasy, rural, genres and a few others. I do not really pay that much attention to them, as I see myself as a slice of life writer. I take a character, and I write their life story, the whole living truth of it, regardless of where it is set, be it fantasy or real. I am a teller of tales, nothing more. It makes me so very happy.

I am told, I should sell myself more or I will never be rich, like it is some prerequisite for the successful life. Well, I can assure you, I will not tick that particular bench mark, and actually I don’t care. Money is not everything, I love what I do, I love being able to sit for days and use my mind, my dreams, and creativity to write down all these amazing and wonderful characters, that are a pale patchwork taken from the reality of everyone I have met. My thoughts and my words, paint the picture of a character that comes alive on the page, now that to me is real magic.

In essence, that is the joy of reading, every book opens up an aspect of life we never knew about. Each book is a challenge on some level, and we may not always agree with a part of it, but our eyes are still opened. We can sit alone, and live many different lives, and experience the unknown, which in turn expands our horizons and broadens our minds, and that is why I write. You see, all those writers I have loved, did the same, and it has helped me through life, and I aim to continue it on.

Life is not about fast cars, big houses and designer labels, it is about being real, and being honest with yourself, admitting your flaws and embracing them, and living a life that has real value, not monetary value. That moment with a loved one, when your eyes catch that momentary glance they stole of you, and you smile to yourself. Those moments when your child turns and says, I love you dad. That joy of a parent who looks at you and says, I am proud of you son, those count, they have true meaning, and no amount of money can buy them.

Knowing the darkness will pass, or that no matter how hard life gets, you will make it through, you have no idea what that will look like, but you know you will get there. Being smacked down, and having to get up again when you feel at your worst, but knowing that was the lowest point, and from here you will rise again, that is the true value of life. That is what I write about, because one day, someone as lost and feeling as hopeless as I did, will read my words, and just like I did, they will start over and move forward again, that is why I write.

So, again I ask, why do we read, and why do we write?

Simply put… Because we should, because within those pages, the answer to inspire you is waiting, or in need of being written down.

We live in a world that is losing the ability to understand why books are written, and my best advice to you, would be simply this. Never be one of them, books have the wisdom to guide you forward, forget that at your peril, and keep reading. If you cannot find that one book you desire to read, then write it, you have the skills, you have already lived them.

Go read, or write.

Robin John Morgan, is a writer blogger, who has written the series of fantasy adventure, Heirs to the Kingdom, is currently writing the slice of life fiction, The Curio Chronicles, and has also published Rise of the Raven, a dark pre medieval fantasy of political betrayal. He continues to write more. All his work is available in digital and print formats from all leading book retailers.