James Campbell

I’ve often wondered how much of who we are is shaped by the decisions we’ve made and how much is shaped by the decisions we’re still afraid to make. We spend years building lives around careers, responsibilities, relationships, and expectations. Eventually, those things become part of our identity. They’re how people recognize us, how they describe us, and sometimes, how we describe ourselves. But what happens when the person you’ve become doesn’t quite match the person you still imagine...

There’s something different about getting rejected when the thing being rejected came from a creative place. I’m talking about something you spent countless hours, days, months—time in general—creating. Something you believed was great. Something that started as an idea in your head and somehow became real because you refused to leave it there. Not something you were assigned to do. Not something you threw together because you had to. I’m talking about something you created from nothing....

I’m a firefighter, husband, father, and writer—and some days there simply isn’t enough of me to go around. I don’t have a perfect writing schedule or a secret for finding more hours in the day. I’m just learning how to keep creating in the middle of a very full life.