I’d like to welcome everyone that’s reading this. Kayode Lycaon is a new name for me. This new name symbolizes one of the biggest changes in my life and I’m happy to have you along for the ride. But if you’ll indulge me, I’d like to tell you how I got here.
Ever since I was a child, I wanted to tell stories. More than anything in the world, I wanted to write words that would be read and enjoyed by others. That dream never flourished. I wrote a few small things in college and the best of those are on the Short Stories page. But I never could focus on the words well enough to get them on the page.
Eventually I gave up writing and focused on my career as a software developer. Programming was something I could do. The unforgiving structure of code allowed me to channel my energy in a specific direction. Through a series of events, I ended up in Ohio and my world started to change.
I discovered Furry Fandom through a convention in 2013 and by 2014, I was on staff. Eventually that convention grew to consume every spare moment I had. I worked hard with people I loved and it brought the most joy I’d ever had. Little did I know that joy would be my downfall.
In 2018, I became chairman of the convention that introduced me to the fandom. What should be been exciting slowly became madness. Then several months before the convention, I had a severe psychotic break and spent four months barely in touch with reality. I was forced to step down from my duties as chairman and then as staff as my mental health deteriorated. I started writing again to cope with problems I couldn’t even begin to understand.
Early in 2019, I finally went to see a psychiatrist. That led to me being diagnosed Bipolar (type 1) fairly quickly. Months of intense therapy and medication changes followed as I refused to be hospitalized. Looking back, I should have been but I clawed my way forward by sheer force of will.
During the early months of my treatment, I wrote three stories: Friday Night, Dark Garden Lake, and Welcome to the Pack. Their combined word count was over 20,000, more words of fiction than I had ever written in any single year of my life.
Friday Night was my first submission to an anthology. Even though it got rejected, it was proof that my dream could become reality. Then Dark Garden Lake got accepted. My second submission ever, got accepted. That’s when I knew my dream would happen.
As my medication changes slowed and I stabilized, I gained the ability to focus on whatever I wanted. Any dream I focused on was finally within my grasp. I was in control of my own destiny.
This shook me to my core. The person I once was and all that defined me, was mental illness. The faceless, unbeatable enemy had guided my life had been given a name and driven away.
A new person emerged. Uncertain of who I was or where I was ultimately going, I picked up the pen and make a new name. Like a phoenix, Kayode Lycaon was born from the ashes of an old life, ready to start a new journey into the great unknown.
And here I am, at the start of a new life. I hope you will join me in discovering all the worlds that have been waiting to be crafted since I was a child. Because there is nothing more beautiful than the written word bound to the page to tell a story.