Why I Decided to Write a Book Series

I Pray You Hear My Heart On This One. There Is Not A Boasting Bone In My Body Write Now.

I received copies of ‘Sophomore Year’ in the mail today, and to be frank, I am exceptionally proud of myself! It is never really about accomplishing a goal, as much as it is about purposefully progressing along the journey. You see, during the last year or so, I became a foster parent of three, maintained a 40+/hour corporate work week, continued to preserve a 4.0 GPA in my doctoral program, and managed to complete the second novel in my evolving book series. 

Throughout this book-writing journey, I have experienced every emotion known to man. I used every minute of my free time to write and rewrite this book. During my many moments of frustrations, I asked myself, is the extra stress worth it? Many times I quit in my head, only to talk myself out of it a couple of minutes (sometimes days) later. There are many reasons as to why I have continued to push through, with the most salient noted below.

First, as a child, I never met an African American male author. Where I come from, outside of teachers, no one stressed the importance of reading and writing, …and if they did, their voice was tuned out in an attempt to fit in socially. As an African American author who’s visited countless local schools, I can visibly see a shift in students’ minds when I tell them I’m an author. Seeing someone that looks like you can push kids past the stereotype of reading and writing being “corny” and “lame.”

Secondly, our culture places an outweighed emphasis on sports. As a child, I was a product of that and saw it clearly as an adult. When I go into the corporate offices at my job, the majority of my colleagues that comprise the information technology department are of different ethnicities. I decided to ask a colleague that works in IT why there are so many people from your culture working in this field. The response he gave said it all, “because this was what we were raised to do.” I don’t know the validity of that answer, but it has layers of truth to it. His response resonated with me because often, the media, society, community, and even family can make it seem like sports is all that African Americans can do/be good at. But we are so much more. Many of us raise our children to be athletes, but when we look at the numbers of how many can play professionally, we know the numbers are stacked against us.

 I could go on, but I’ll leave with this – As a child, I wanted to be the next Emmitt Smith. By the time I was 10, my father had told me that I was extremely talented in football. He said if I worked hard at it, I would achieve my NFL aspirations. I worked exceptionally hard throughout my youth and early adult years. So much so that my identity became wrapped in this lottery ticket size dream. When that dream didn’t materialize, I thought life was not worth living.

 In closing, this novel has many themes, but one of the most pressing to me is that we were made to be more than what we do in sports, more than what we do socially, and more than what we’re told our potential is as children. However, it takes time, education, and self-awareness to identify our true passions, purpose, and potential. 

Please support The Athlete-Student: Sophomore Year, January 29th.

Sincerely,

Eugene D. Holloman

Holloman House Publishing