Rising Stars: Meet Jon Goff

Today we’d like to introduce you to Jon Goff

Hi Jon, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
When I was a young man, a boy really, I was troubled, and I was in trouble, a lot. I was told by a psychiatrist my parents took me to, that I was special, and that no one understood me. That I was a victim of my environment. Which is why I acted out. I was a kid, so I believed him, and I became worse than I’d been before. He’d essentially given me permission to misbehave. Some years later, as I began accumulating a juvenile record, in one of the rare instances I was actually in school, one of my teachers asked me, “Jon, do you know what your problem is?”

I was prepared to give the professional assessment I’d received years prior, that no one understood me, that I was special, and a victim of my environment, but before I could answer, Mrs. Esther said, “you refuse to take responsibility for your life. It’s your life. Do something with it.”

Those three sentences struck me to my core, and have resonated with me for more than forty years. They literally changed my life. It was my life, my responsibility. I would like to say it was a Hollywood moment where the epiphany turned my life around, but our decisions and choices have weight and mass. They impart inertia to our lives, so change can only happen slowly.

It took me years to change course, but the moment I decided to take responsibility for my life was the fulcrum with which I moved my world. I had a place to stand, and the long lever of that deep understanding that our lives are our responsibility, and no one can change a man’s course except himself.

Plato remarked that, “For a man to conquer himself is the first and noblest of all victories.” And indeed, mastering one’s own passions and learning self-restraint and discipline is the precursor to all other victories in life.

Two centuries after Plato’s observation, the Roman scholar, Publilius Syrus summed up the sentiment thusly, “Vincit Qui Se Vincit.” He conquers who conquers himself.

Essentially, this is what I was told. That my life was mine, no one else’s, and the mastery of it was mine to win or lose. Once I understood that I was not a victim, I began making different choices that, over time, reshaped my life. And where I’d once been headed in a direction that was leading to, at best, prison, and at worst, suicide, I was now on a new course. A course of my own making.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No. There are no smooth roads. Life is, essentially, a series of obstacles to overcome. Everyone believes that others have it easier, but it’s subjective. My life has been harder than some, easier than others. I made it fifty years before I knew anyone who’d been murdered. My niece. Her son, made it five years. Was my life easier than his will be? I don’t know. I can’t imagine starting your life witnessing the murder of your mother. What would it have done to me? Would I have survived intact?

I don’t know. Those things didn’t happen to me, but my nephew is a bright, joyful young man. He still carries the burden of that trauma, but he was equal to it. I don’t know how. I know he had help, but I am still in awe of his resilience.

I could talk about my struggles, and the challenges I’ve faced, but they seem trivial in light of what others have borne. So I choose not to, except to say, without struggles, without challenges and obstacles to overcome, we are left weak and helpless. You don’t build muscle by lifting feather pillows. Strength only comes from doing, and enduring, difficult things. And I think it is a mistake to deny people their struggles in the name of compassion.

You can help someone carry a burden, but you shouldn’t carry it for them, or they will never be able to bear the inevitable burdens of life.

This is waxing more philosophical than I intended, but the facts remain true. My burdens and challenges, while they seemed difficult at the time, pale to what I’ve seen others endure. It seems somehow self-absorbed to talk about mine. It’s probably not the answer you were looking for, but it’s how I feel.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’ve spent years writing in one form or another, from technical articles to opinion pieces, and the occasional short story. I’ve always had a gift for language. One of my obsessions is pens, writing instruments of any kind, really, but pens in particular.

They are magical to me. They can pull the thoughts and feelings from a living mind and set them on paper, uniquely expressed both in penmanship and thought. It sounds odd, I suppose, but I love pens for their power to take the intangible words and images, the thoughts and feelings of a living soul, and turn them into something you can hold in your hands. Something you can take into your own mind. I feel the same way about books, and a sense of awe and reverence when I’m in a library surrounded by the fragments of minds and hearts and souls, some dating back thousands of years. Minds that time and death could not silence because of the humble pen!

I suppose it was inevitable I’d become a writer.

I don’t know that I’m known for anything. I’m the author of The Rune that Binds, and if you search for me on the Internet, that’s what you’ll find me associated with. The idea of people I’ve never met knowing my name, or coming to see me at a convention, still seems strange to me. I admit that it makes me uncomfortable.

The thing I’m proudest of is that my books have helped others fall in love with reading. I’m very proud to know that there are people for whom my book was the first book they read, and it opened the world of reading to them. If I do nothing else with my writing, that will be enough.

I don’t know if anything sets me apart from others. I do try to be unconventional because conventional is boring, but I don’t want to be unconventional for the sake of it. And I don’t want to be bizarre, or surreal, which is just a sophist’s way of saying bizarre.

And actually, being conventional is often simply a matter of being realistic. Fantasy and science fiction often go for spectacle, especially in movies. But it’s done in books too. Fantastical creatures in elaborately fashioned worlds with intricate and complex societies, creatures, complex magic systems, et cetera. They bore the hell out of me, not because they aren’t well done, but because they take up too much of the story. They slow the pacing down.

Think about it. When you meet up with friends, you don’t discuss pop culture in excruciating detail. There’s no need. The same is true in writing fiction. Your world building is to create a place for your characters to inhabit, to live in. Consequently, your characters shouldn’t be tour guides for the reader.

Let the world be. You should no more call attention to the world building than a movie should call attention to the sets and costumes. It’s all there to serve the story. And that is, for the moment, all the unconventionalism I need to make my stories stand apart.

Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
I don’t really believe in luck. As I said earlier, life is filled with obstacles and challenges. Overcoming them, understanding that there will always be more on the horizon even while half a dozen are underfoot, is the key to success. Luck isn’t real. Focus is. Where you focus your eyes and your attention determine the direction your life will take. It won’t reduce the number of obstacles you face, but it will determine where you end up when you overcome them.

I have been fortunate in the talents and gifts, and good health I was borne with, and if you want to call that luck, I suppose you can. I just think that life will always work out if you put in the effort. It won’t always work out the way you want, and sometimes it works out better than you expected, but you have to put in the effort.

That’s how life is. Understanding that, and knuckling down and doing the work to get through life’s challenges, is what brings good fortune.

Pricing:

• Speaking – $2,000 plus travel and expenses

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sommerstone.com/
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