“Write for Yourself”: Thoughts on Finding a Writing Life by Earby Markham
I’ve arrived at the creative writing world by what I thought was perhaps a unique pathway. Yet, when I truly stop and think about it, there are others, some who are giants in the field, that traveled a similar pathway. From the famous, such as Joseph Wambaugh to the infamous like Mark Fuhrman, the LAPD has hatched dozens of published writers.
However, unlike many of those former LAPD officers, I didn’t do 20 years in the service of a badge. I was enticed away from the public sector with under 10 years of experience.
I soon found that I could scratch my itch for maintaining order and enforcing the rules in the private sector.
I didn’t work for the LAPD, but I did spend a portion of my career with the Mobile, Alabama Police Department. My time there was valuable in teaching me how to write succinctly, while getting my points across. It also taught me how to print nicely in little block letters, which was the death of my cursive writing skills.
After leaving active law enforcement, I entered the world of security management and found my professional home for the rest of my career.
In late 1990, I had my first magazine article published in the law enforcement publication, Law and Order. I then wrote another dozen and a half (or so) articles on firearms, equipment and specialty schools for the law enforcement and firearms presses.
However, like for many, the events of 9/11 brought significant changes to my life, and I stopped writing, not returning to it until late in 2022 shortly after retiring from my final career role as the Safety and Security Manager for USA’s Children’s and Women’s Hospital.
During the interim, I would occasionally write a short piece about something I had experienced and post it on my Facebook page and subject my friends to my storytelling. And friends being friends, they would indicate that they liked my writing and encourage me to write more. Blame it on them.
All of which had led me to self-publish a book, which is a small grouping of seven short essays, in early April of this year.
These essays are an assortment of events that occurred over a 20-year period, beginning while I was a police officer and culminating while I was part of the security leadership team at Beau Rivage casino and resort in Biloxi, Mississippi. Most, with the exception of one of the early essays, have a sense of the silly and sometimes strange circumstances and events that occur in law enforcement and security.
I have always been an avid reader and to today always have something that I am reading.
I encourage any and everyone who thinks that they want to write, to simply DO IT. Do it for yourself, regardless of your formal training or the lack of it. Write for yourself first, just do it.
Earby Markham was born in the port city of Mobile in the late 1950s. His family moved across Mobile Bay to the area known as the Eastern Shore in the early 60s. His career ranged from the public sector as a police officer for the City of Mobile through the private sector, where he first worked as the staff investigator for a law firm. Moving on into security management role he worked across several different industries. Beginning in hospitality and gaming, through oil and gas refining and concluding his professional life in healthcare. Earby has written for the law enforcement as well as the firearms presses. Livin life… is his debut.