About Me — Sean Myers. It is deliciously ironic that I have…
By: Sean Myers
Tags: Sports, About Me, Politics, Introduction, Satire

About Me — Sean Myers

It is deliciously ironic that I have become a full-time writer.

Yours Truly, in Zimbabwe | Photo by Author © 2012

I knew I wanted to be a writer when I was still in middle school. Starting when I was 10 or so, I spent an hour every night handwriting a novel in a series of red notebooks. But I knew that being a novelist was a terrible career choice — for every rich and famous author like J.K. Rowling or Stephen King, there were tens of thousands who never make a dime.

Being a full-time writer was almost impossible, and I knew it. I had to get a job so I could write on the side.

So I went to college. But I quickly fell for the “study what you enjoy” attitude and got a degree in English.

After graduating, I faced the choice that most English majors face in an attempt to get out of their parents’ house: Do I try to become a lawyer or a teacher?

A few months later, I got hired as a substitute teacher.

The next day, I started reading about law schools and applied to take the LSAT.

But then my law school journey fell into the “be the lawyer you want to see in the world” attitude. It brought me to the University of Cincinnati College of Law for their human rights program. I grew enamored with the idea of being a human rights lawyer, and my ambitions of being a novelist faded.

When I graduated, I didn’t have the money to take the bar exam. No one would hire a recent graduate from a middling school in a legal industry that still hadn’t recovered from the Great Recession, let alone a recent graduate before they passed the bar. “Job offers pending bar passage” were so 2005. The stereotypical human rights organizations — Amnesty International or, to a lesser extent, the ACLU — were filling their rosters with Ivy Leaguers and lateral transfers with decades of experience.

I got a job at a music store. I made some side money driving visiting attorneys around Cincinnati and writing legal blogs at night. I got a temporary gig at the local newspaper for the 2014 election. I got my first salaried job proctoring English language tests for international students in Cincinnati. I saved some money for the bar exam. I needed a root canal and lost it all.

When I noticed that I was working 55 hours a week, including weekends, to tread water, I took a deep breath and cut it all. I hitched a trailer to the back of my Chevy Cobalt and drove to my dad’s house.

I remember driving the entire 12 hours without putting on the radio. In the silence, I mulled things over. Somewhere in the foothills of western New York on I-86, it dawned on me. I remember the sun was splayed on a vista of gorges that sank from the highway and then rose again in the distance. The legal blogs were making me over $30 an hour. They were easy to write. I just needed more of them. I had two clients. I just needed more of them.

It occurred to me that I had been a freelance legal writer for several months.

That was 2015. Since then, I’ve built a website, assembled a portfolio of legal clients, and ghostwritten 2.4 million words of legal blogging and content marketing material for attorneys across the country. I’ve also branched out from legal blog writing: I’ve written some legal briefs and PowerPoint slides for employee trainings, and done some travel writing, written about ultimate Frisbee, penned news satire articles and even gotten published in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

After all of that time trying to get a job so I could write on the side, I have become a full-time writer.

On Medium, I tend to write about U.S. politics and the law (where I am an active and very informed liberal), with some side forays into satire and humor:

I’ve also done some other crazy stuff, which has led to some story ideas:

I lived in Taiwan for 9 months

I volunteered as a legal observer in Ferguson, Missouri, right after the grand jury refused to indict the police officer who shot an unarmed black teenager

I monitored the polls in Pennsylvania during the 2020 election

I played competitive ultimate Frisbee, even trying out for a semi-professional team

I studied abroad in Galway, Ireland, and Cambridge, England

I worked as an intern on the High Court of Botswana

Now I just have to get to work on the two novels that I’ve been putting off. It’s hard to sit down and write in your free time when your job is to sit down and write.