And when I say enthusiastic farmers, I mean cow-hide-hat-wearing, random-measurements-in-hectares-screaming, ferry-some-kind-of livestock-in-their-car-every-weekend-drive, and holiday-in-a-tent-at-their-farm-every-end-of-school-term-holiday kind of enthusiastic. And they wear that with a badge of honor every single time.

 

I was the noisy, bubbly, clown of the house. Always up for a laugh and always up to date with all the latest cartoons (as any child would be in the early 2000's). I was always happiest drawing in front of the TV or out on an adventure in my neighborhood with my friends. I actually learnt to draw watching my older brother and my cousin who traced over cartoon characters on tissue boxes then tricked me into thinking they drew it all from scratch. Which funnily enough, neither of them remember as I out draw them on the daily.

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But one of my greatest passions ever since I could write sentences on paper was writing stories. A passion I have been cultivating for so long that there are even Eras in my writing that I like to leave as little Easter eggs in my work now - such as my "Enchanted Royals Phase" of majestic princesses and princes, my "Too Cool For School Phase" where nearly every character miraculously knew how to do martial arts when skipping school, all the way through to the "Think Pink Book Phase" that I have forever left shrouded in mystery half in embarrassment of the quality and quantity of the work but also for the oddly inspired randomness of several pieces that lead to the inception and evolution of some of my favorite characters.

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One of my strongest memories of my family is from a road trip from visiting my grandparents for Christmas. My Uncle had noticed that I had been writing in a notebook for the greater part of the holiday and asked if I could share what I was doing with everyone else. Excited to actually have an audience for one of my latest works - that I was inexplicably proud of considering I had hand written over twenty pages of it in a space of five days - I opened up the book and began to read out the prologue of my very own fantasy sci-fi novel. I was about half a page in when my cousin stopped me to comment on the name I had given to this fantasy world, "Callamus".

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    "Why does it sound like a disease you'd be scared to hear your dog has?" she laughed. "I'm so sorry to break this to you but he has... Kalamas!!" she added on, butchering the pronunciation of this seemingly easy to pronounce made up world. By this point the rest of the members in the car had stopped listening completely to the story to laugh hysterically at the name K-A-L-A-M-A-S, some to the extent that fat tears rolled down their cheeks at the slightest mention of the name as I walk by even up to date.

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This carried on for the rest of the car ride.

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This was a two and a half hour ride home.

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I did not write another story for two years after that.

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And in those two years, every time Kalamas was brought up it would, without fail, bring up a great big laugh out of each and every one of them. And I would politely join in on a light chuckle or a smile. Just a quick reminder before you feel bad for me that those were the people who loved me dearly and we had all come from the most family bonding event of the year, Christmas. Now at the tender age of twenty-three, I have over 3000 pages en-counting of several written stories just waiting to be edited and published and adapted into a graphic novel series. 

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So, to my loving family; Who's laughing now?

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(It's probably still you but I'm a much better writer for it so... there.)