Nice to meet you! Please allow me to introduce myself...

Heya! If you've read any of my stuff, you probably already know too much about me and how my mind works, but I feel it's only appropriate to formally introduce myself. My name is Gabe and I'm a writer. Growing up, I always found myself reading and writing while the other kids were playing football. Partly because of different interests, partly because I have extraordinarily poor coordination. My coordination is so bad that I accidentally knocked over a wedding cake once. Granted, it was a carrot cake, but it was humiliating, nonetheless. Anyway, when I was a teenager, I immigrated to Israel, where I served for three years in the IDF. It wasn't fun, per se, but at least the food was terrible. After finally getting discharged, I resumed my writing, this time with a new perspective on the world around me. Though talked about ad nauseam, I realized that war is something people seldom discuss honestly and in an informed way. Though war will not be the topic of this blog, there's a chance I'll discuss the hard truths at some point in the future.

Another thing that has influenced my writing is my ongoing battle with PTSD. Fear not, I'll get into the unpleasant details in future blog posts, but I can save you time and summarize it honestly and accurately just by saying "it's Hell." The war at home is in many ways more difficult than the war outside, but it's truly impossible to grasp unless you're fighting it. And if you are fighting it, I'm writing for you.

To organize my thoughts and feelings regarding PTSD, I began writing Scars And Silhouettes, which is currently on its journey to publication, as a way of processing my experiences. Writing has become a sort of refuge for me. My word processor is the one place I am asymptomatic and free to challenge my demons. As time went on, I unraveled further, taking a three-year hiatus from writing. Honestly, I couldn't even read for a while, with the exception of graphic novels. If I'm gonna be even more honest than that, there was a time where I suffered from uncontrollable emotional vomiting. Gross, but honesty is what I'm going for. As my healing began to noticeably take hold, I found myself able to read and write again. In the first two weeks of my returned literacy, I finished Scars And Silhouettes. After that, I was bored and still felt that I had things to say, so I decided to continue writing and become an author. After all, if you do what you love for a living, you'll never need to get a real job.

At this point in my life, I want to tell veterans what I wish someone told me. Sure, there's therapy, medications, and a million other things, but vets leave the army with many unanswered questions and many thoughts nobody can relate to. From whether or not people are inherently good or bad to "should I have that twelfth drink?". I want to ponder that with you. Instead of screaming together into the void, let's do it in the library.

So welcome, friend. I'm very much looking forward to making you laugh, cry, and think.