If there’s one specific area that has defined me since high school, it’s politics.  I find the subject intensely fascinating, from the campaigning to the actual governing.  When I got to college, Political Science was the major everyone assumed I would take up, and I did.  And I loved most of my political science classes.  From American Government to Environmental Politics, I took the classes in my study even after I received the required credits.  Politics was who I was.

There were consequences for such a decision.  I had a college degree, but what exactly was I to do with my life?  Depending on how you look at it, political science was either too narrow or too broad.  You could either go into politics and government, or you could take up a job that only required a college degree. I went with the former.

I had interned in a state legislator’s office the summer before my senior year.  Before I even graduated, I was hired to do some database work.  That continued after I got my degree, and when one of the staff members in the office departed, I took up his space.  Before I knew it, I was in state government.  And I kinda liked it.

It wasn’t even a year later when my boss was asked to run for Congress.  I was drafted to work on the campaign, which devolved into a nightmare.  I’m not going to go into it.  I’ll only write about it if I could back to school for a PhD, which I’m not planning on doing anytime soon.  Suffice to say, my boss lost and I was out of a job.  The experience was so off-putting that I decided to retire from politics.  I didn’t mind reading or writing about it, but participating was a step too far.  I’d stay an observer and search for a different day job.

I’ve stayed in retirement since then, but I am an avid observer.  I read plenty of articles and keep a close watch on the news.  It’s still a part of me.

When I created a Twitter account for my self-published novels, I made a decision to keep politics out of it.  It would only alienate readers or attract trolls.  If you want to know my political opinions so badly, you can find my pseudonymous account.  Politics has gotten too polarizing in this country.  And, from what I’ve read, most self-published authors don’t touch the subject.

However, because of its impact on me, politics often finds a way into my writings.  Obviously it’s easier to keep out of a fantasy novel.  But some of my unpublished stuff has some political story threads, though I keep the partisanship out as best I can.  And a bunch of my future ideas touch on politics or governing.  Don’t worry, it’ll be obvious if you want to avoid them.  But even though I regret majoring ONLY in Political Science, and taking up a disheartening job in the area, I can’t escape the hold it has on me.