Author Known — About Me, Part 3
Read Part 1 here | Read Part 2 here
The Hands That Built What Others Couldn’t See
I used to be a custom cabinetmaker. A carpenter. A home improvement craftsman. And I am very good at it. In fact, for 25 years, I made a living doing it—and I made it well. My hands knew how to listen to wood. My eyes measured with a glance. I built things people lived around, raised their kids in front of, and made memories with. I measured twice, cut once with a tape measure.
The Creativity Didn’t Retire—It Rewired
Eventually, my body started talking louder than the wood. Years of wear, tear, and time took their toll. I started hearing the same words I’d heard from others in the trades: “I used to do what you do, but I had to stop.” For some, it was injury. For others, age. For me, it was both—along with a growing sense that if I didn’t shift gears, I was going to stall out for good. I think about the actual time the halt took place, the clock keeps ticking.
There’s a strange twist no one warns you about: just because your body gives out doesn’t mean your creativity does. In fact, mine exploded. The less I could express it physically, the more it started pressing at the walls of my mind, looking for a new way out. So, I gave it one.
From Measuring Cuts to Crafting Chaos
I wasn’t necessarily new to writing, I had written a lot over the years. I turned some of my entertainment center projects into DIY plans that other makers purchased and built themselves, or they adapted my plans into their own unique creations. Neat thing about that experience is those plans are still online and can still be purchased.
I started writing. Custom cabinetmaker to Author, this time it was different. I sensed it would become my new creative way of life. I started creating characters, building ideas, dreaming in plot lines and punchlines instead of blueprints and bevels. Matter of fact, I’m starting to wonder if it is the other way around; perhaps those characters made me. Anyhow, I went from measuring cuts to crafting chaos with a keyboard. Not completely, though, I built my own home, a beautiful cabin village in Central Kentucky.
Then I did something wild and kind of ridiculous, mostly to prove I could: I wrote, edited, formatted, and published my very first book, in seven days. I called it the 7-Day Author Challenge—and I lived it. The result? A finished book, up on Amazon, KDP to be exact, on paper pages and out into in the real world.
I’m not saying that’s the ideal timeline. It’s the exception, not the rule. It’s a small book, I call it a bookette. That book, however, isn’t just a book for me, it is a turning point. It is the first visible mark of a new kind of craftsmanship.
The Work No One Drove Past
For most of my life, the work I did was invisible to the outside world. Unlike landscaping where passersby witness the transformation in real time, my art was built behind closed doors. On the insides in kitchens, living rooms, dens, and bedrooms is where my craft took form. My work was personal, one-family-at-a-time craftsmanship, not roadside spectacles. No one drove past and marveled at what I’d done. Besides the ones who hired me to create for them, those who saw my work has to be invited. Not by me, but the new owners. The only way I could show the world what I created was through photos, through binary pixels on my website, or a social media post here and there. Even then, it didn’t blast out everywhere. Those images didn’t flood the market. I put myself out there just enough for the right people to find me, the kind of people who did their homework, saw my work, and said, “That’s who I want in my home.” They gave me the keys and codes to my work sites, their dwellings, and their homes.
A Digital Workshop with the Same Heart
That digital workshop, those subtle online showcases, required just as much creativity as the physical builds. While I never loved “selling myself,” I respected the art of letting my work speak for me. If there was anything I did in life after K-12, I showed my work like my teachers instructed me to do. The reviews, the referrals, the quiet trust built from real homes and real hands, those were the true sales pitches.
So maybe what I’m doing now isn’t so different. Maybe writing is just another kind of inside work. Maybe the words I write now are cabinets for the mind, spaces to hold something meaningful, to make life a little more beautiful on the inside.
Author Known, Still Building
Here I am, Author Known and the emergence of Ryan Michaelson. Not because I’m famous (yet), and not because I think the world owes me attention. I’m Author Known because I choose to be known, for what I create, what I challenge, what I uncover. I, too, am an outlier of my own time. This is where the story shifts. From sawdust to storylines, from callouses to characters, from what I used to be to what I’ve only just begun. Welcome to my little world. You are invited.
