About Me — Tyler Donegan
Before we get started on me, I have a quick question for you.
What is the first story you ever heard?
Was it a pattern of heartbeats you heard in the womb, a tale told in a language only your fetal mind could make sense of?
Yeah, probably not. Last time I checked, fetuses don’t know morse code and hearts don’t produce it.
Maybe it was The Very Hungry Caterpillar, or some other story for kids.
That’s a little easier to believe, but… come on, you don’t really remember being read that for the first time. You were a chubby infant with a full diaper when grandma read to you about that caterpillar.
Sure, you remember the guy was hungry, but do you remember how it made you feel?
Okay, okay, the title of this is “About Me.” I’ll get on with it.
The reason I pose that question is because it’s one I think about quite a lot.
Why, you ask?
Just think about this for a second: from that very first story you ever consumed, whatever it might have been, you were changed.
Your tiny baby eyes were opened to the soul of humanity, and you craved more.
You had grandma tell you about that caterpillar over, and over, and over again, until she brought you more stories. Stories of mouses and cookies and steam engines that could. And the snowball never stopped rolling.
Each and every story you have consumed from that very first one up to the most recent movie you watched, book you read, or show you binged, have built off the last.
Each one ever so slightly altered your heart, your mind, your worldview — your very soul. That’s just what stories do.
This personal change between stories forms a story of its own.
If you want to know about me, that is the story I want you to know about. The story of my journey with stories. So here it is.
Stories are my lifeblood.
I eat, sleep, and breathe ’em.
Back when I was a young buck, before my brain was developed enough to form complete memories, I was already cooking up imaginary worlds and scenarios to entertain myself with.
I still remember some of them:
- The LEGO mini-figure war between “the lifeables” and “the hateables” (guess which ones were the good guys).
- The distant planet of Kopinc, home to several different species of Komodo-dragon-looking lizards called Tilres (guess where I got the name from).
- The nameless guy who had a dope jetpack and was constantly on the run from armies of bad guys (AKA the guy I would imagine running alongside my car window on long rides).
There were many more, and I could fill up pages and pages with the sprawling lore and numerous little facts I invented for each one.
I will spare you, though, because they suck.
I was still rocking velcro sneakers when I came up with them, after all.
These little paracosms of mine would morph with every new story I was exposed to.
- After Star Wars, my worlds became full of the disheveled yet futuristic technology seen in A New Hope.
- After Lord of the Rings, everyone was riding horses, casting spells, and fighting orcs.
- Spider Man had my car window character swinging around with grappling hooks on his wrists that totally weren’t web-shooters.
Basically, before I knew that I even liked writing, my brain was hard at work crafting worlds and stories. The stories I concocted reflected what my young soul yearned for — adventure, wonder, the fantastic.
Little did I know, my soul developed these yearnings from the stories I consumed.
And boy, did I consume.
As soon as I learned to read, you would never find me far from a book — which always got laughs from fellow audience members at my brother’s basketball games. The Harry Potter books I would bring with me were nearly half my size.
What I’m really trying to say is that very, very early on, I fell into a cycle of stories:
- The fiction I consumed would shape my mind and soul.
- The fiction I then produced reflected my mind and soul.
At 21 years old, I can wholeheartedly say that the cycle never stopped. Stories are still very much my lifeblood. I don’t go a day without both consuming and producing fiction.
It has been just over a year since I have begun taking action on my dream of getting the stories in my head onto paper. I have since become only more fascinated with the art of storytelling, and all the intricacies of what makes a story work.
Needless to say, plenty has changed since my childhood days of daydreaming about lifeables and hateables and car-window-guys.
My creative process is much more streamlined, and has much different output. Likewise, the fiction I consume is far more intentional.
A wise man once said that you are what you eat.
- If I read Blood Meridian, chances are I won’t end up writing about sunshine and rainbows by the end of the day.
- If I watch a cheery episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender, I probably won’t find myself cultivating the air of gloom I wanted in the next chapter of the book I’m working on.
Stories influence me, and I influence my stories.
So sometimes, I find myself asking: what is the first story I ever heard? How did it influence baby me? Would I be a different person if I heard a different story, all those years ago?
The answer is: it doesn’t really matter.
I didn’t have any control over what the first story I ever heard was — or anything else that happened to my infant self.
But I do know the most recent book I read, and I can control the next movie I watch. While I can’t change the past, I can continue building myself, story by story. And so can you.
That is the power of fiction. And that is who I am: an amalgamation of stories, people, and places that I love.
All the best writers are thieves, right?
On Medium, I am interested in starting discussions about storytelling in all its forms —from consuming fiction to producing it, and the interplay between the two. I hope to see you joining them!
Until then, I am honored to be the most recent edition to the list of stories you have encountered. You’ve come a long way from that very first one (whatever it may have been).
