I have three tattoos. The first two were small, slapdash pieces, conceived in the minutes before they were inked to my body. I know that there are those who regret their youthful, impulsive tattoos, but I do not come here to cast scorn upon those early inkings. On the contrary, I cherish them both. While their renderings leave a little to be desired, I in no way regret the impulse that carried the day. When I look at them, I’m reminded of the young man I once was, a man whose youthful longings are still tucked away in the hidden corners of my soul.
My third tattoo, on the other hand, was planned and completed some fourteen years after the second one. It is, proudly, my writer’s tattoo. Inked by the incomparable Hayley Moran of Haylo Healing Arts Lounge in Charlotte, NC, it’s a beautiful piece of art, depicting a writer’s pen with a tree flowing from the nib. For me, the tree has long served as a personal symbol of creativity. When Hayley showed me the design, I knew that she had captured the essence of what the writing process meant to me.
At the time of my third tattoo, my writing life was in something of a nadir. I had suffered a monumental loss of faith in a project that I had labored on for over three years, and I was trapped in a cycle of indecision, unable to complete the project at hand while struggling to commit to new work. After a decade-and-a-half of writing, I no longer knew what direction to take. The only thing I knew was that I was as committed to writing as I had ever been, even if I could not, at the present moment, see the path forward.
Enter the tattoo. For intentional reasons, I chose the inside of my upper right arm as the location for the tattoo, the first spot on my body where one of my tattoos would be on public display—at least in short sleeve weather. The tattoo was my way of doubling down on the person I had chosen to be.
Shortly after getting my third tattoo, I began work on a genre-bending novel where the characters’ tattoos were intrinsic to the plot. As the novel developed, I became fixated on the way a person’s tattoo might work on another person’s subconscious, and how, in a dreamworld where the puppet master is controlling events using his conscious mind, someone’s tattoo might fall through the cracks. Although the novel took years to come to fruition, by the summer of 2021 I had wrapped up Many Savage Moons, my fantasy/literary hybrid with a heavy dose of tattoo imagery. It was released last month. If you’re intrigued, I hope you’ll give it a look.
As for me, I’m still sitting at three tattoos. Will I go for the fourth one day? I honestly can’t say. What I love about all three of my tattoos is the way they remind me of different versions of myself. When the day comes that I’m inspired by a symbol that captures a version of myself that I want to honor, perhaps that will be the day that I set the wheels of my next tattoo in motion. Until then, when I need a creative pick-me-up, I’ll glance at my writer’s tattoo, and remember the creative version of myself that I hold so dear.
*Update: I worked on this essay (and others) off and on over the course of a few months in preparation for the release of Many Savage Moons. Last week, after the essay was finished (but before it was published) I had the chance to drive down to Haylo Healing Arts Lounge and share a copy of Many Savage Moons with Hayley Moran. It was a great experience. Having spent a large part of my life trying to carve out a sacred space to practice my craft, it’s hard to convey what it means to sit down with someone like Hayley. She has spent a lifetime not only practicing the creative arts, but also creating a community where artists can thrive. The times I’ve had the chance to go down to the studio and spend time in Hayley’s world have been transformative for me. I’m beyond grateful both for my writer’s tattoo and for the role Haylo Healing Arts Lounge played has played in my writing life.