Joseph Paradis
I’ve been writing sporadically for most of my life. However, it wasn’t until January 2016 that I began to take it seriously thanks to one of my closest friends. While I’d like to be writing full-time, I (like most independent authors) have a day job, which is a logistician position in the National Guard. I joined in 2005, deployed twice, and have been active duty since 2012. The military lifestyle has had a tremendous impact on my life, filling it with more ups and downs than I can keep track of, as well as some lifelong friends.
My days are spent at a desk or bumbling around in a humongous truck. After work I get myself to a gym and do battle with my inner fat kid for a couple of hours, then rush home and hopefully start writing before 8 pm. I nurture a love for performance arts, especially plays and local stand-up. During summers I don’t ride my motorcycle nearly enough, and the same goes for my snowboard during the winters. At least once a year I’ll go abroad, usually your typical over-indulgent Caribbean cruise, though recently I spent a week in France, where I had the privilege of officiating at a wedding for two dear friends.
The stories I enjoy the most usually leave me shaken for a few days, not because I’m a glutton for masochism, but because they resonate with the wounded parts of me that I wouldn’t ordinarily take notice of. With a somewhat busy lifestyle where stoicism has become my go-to survival tool, I need those stories that derail me from my daily grind, that kick me in the gut and make me feel something.