I don't consider myself a writer by trade, but that doesn't mean that I don't write voraciously. I am a writer by condition rather than profession, and that was a quote taught to me by the late Robert Frost.

Natalie Frank made the important note that writing is often not carried out in isolation. We often have to generate ideas and understand the process of how other people write, and writing groups are the quintessential way we develop our craft. Natalie challenged us to the Promposity Challenge, which asks us to choose five people we would include in our writing group, and explain why we're choosing them.

There are a lot of people who not only informed who I am as a writer, but also a person. These are not all writers, but they are people I would include in my circle as a writing group, because these people aren't people I try to emulate, but are instead people that bring out and awaken the inner writer and Christian in me. In no particular order, here are five people

Robert Frost

In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

Robert Frost is my guru and life philosopher, and he is the poet I have turned to through thick and thin. I keep multiple collections of Frost works, and have read every poem from his longer and more dramatic poems in North of Boston to his heartfelt and tragic and lyric poems of A Witness Tree, after losing his wife, son, and having to turn his daughter into a mental institution. Frost was, and always will be, my center when it comes to writers and poets.

I will remember the Robert Frost class I took in college, where I wrote a 57-page abecedarium based on Frost's work, and it's relation to my life. Initially, I saw no connection. I tried to connect Frost strictly with literary analysis, which was limiting of both Frost and myself. And then I began to tie the experiences and viewpoints of Frost into my life. I started to see how Frost's lover quarrel with the world, as stated on his epitaph, rang true to my own life experiences in my family. In life's most trying moments, I remind myself of Robert Frost's words about the fundamental truth of life: it goes on.

Robert Frost inspired me to get a tattoo on the side of my abdomen, Memento Mori. Remember that you're going to die. If I were to meet Robert Frost some time in the next life, I'd tell him that he inspired me to write an epitaph of my own life:

I hold your doctrine of Memento Mori. And were an epitaph to be my story, I'd say 'my name is Ryan, and I loved people by trying to break the power of shame. I hope I did right by my family in the end.'"

Rust Cohle

Well, once there was always dark. If you ask me, the light's winning.

If the above quote could be said by Rust Cohle, they could be said by anyone. Rust Cohle is the most fascinating TV character I have ever seen. He is nihilistic and pessimistic to a fault, yet still is driven by a hunger to finish a case. He goes on, and adheres to a strong moral code and sense of righteousness even though he has a negative view of the world.

Rust Cohle was a character that constantly grieved an unspeakable tragedy. He saw his daughter die at a very young age, and Rust never truly recovered from that tragedy. He walked through life not trying to make any friends, not caring about his personal living situation or relationships at the expense of trying to solve the case.

And yet he was the most compelling and free Television character I'd ever seen. Despite his negative views of the world, Cohle always refused to accept defeat and wrestle with the devil every day of his life in an attempt to make justice in the one sector he devoted his life to. I would one day want to meet someone just like Rust Cohle to challenge and try me to press forward in the worst of circumstances.

David Simon

There are two Americas - separate, unequal, and no longer even acknowledging each other except on the barest cultural terms. In the one nation, new millionaires are minted every day. In the other, human beings no longer necessary to our economy, to our society, are being devalued and destroyed.

David Simon and his views on American urban life and the human condition of our nation has informed my views, work and day-to-day life. He was the creator of "The Wire," God's gift to the Earth and the greatest gift of all time. Only secondary to the Bible, "The Wire" taught compassion. "The Wire" taught me empathy, particularly to people I thought I would never feel empathy towards, whether it was to drug addicts, drug dealers, or police officers.

David Simon and "The Wire" changed my life because they made me want to serve in a way to be a part of the solution to the America that was left behind, the America where people were being devalued and destroyed. I now teach in Baltimore City, the home and setting of "The Wire", for a lot of reasons that are too detailed to elaborate in a single article. I have written about how "The Wire" made me a better person and how I'm obsessed with "The Wire" because it changed the way I see the world. I would love to talk to David Simon one day and shake his hand, and thank him for all the ways his show changed my life.

Ed Burns

If you have a lesson plan and it fails and you blame yourself, you're on the road to becoming a good teacher. If you blame the kids, you should find another job. And what Prez did was say, 'Why did I fail? Why didn't I reach them?'

Ed Burns and his most influential season of "The Wire", season 4, was the reason why I started thinking about becoming a teacher. While I chose that career and life path for my own personal reasons, Ed Burns showed me the way when season 4 of "The Wire" highlighted the life paths of four kids and their journeys through the school system.

A 20-year police officer turned teacher, Burns had to learn how to navigate challenging experiences in the classroom creatively. He had been in Vietnam and been a 20-year police officer in Baltimore City, an obviously very difficult place to be a police officer, but being a Baltimore City teacher was the hardest thing he'd ever done. Burns acknowledges as an inner-city teacher, you are never successful enough for your kids, and that's good because you're always striving to do more. There's always more to be done.

I actually teach at a school two blocks away from where Burns spent his first four years of teaching. It has been very rough, but there have been very redeeming moments that make teaching in the inner city a microcosm of the America left behind -- the good, the bad, and the very ugly. I would love to one day meet Burns and let him know how things have changed or haven't changed in the school system, and how I could do better in my day-to-day classroom struggles.

Job

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding," -- Job 38:4

"I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted." -- Job 42:2

When I first became a Christian, the biggest barrier I tackled was the question of suffering. How does God let the righteous suffer? How can a just and loving God abide by the tragedies we see so often in our lives? I read and studied the book of Job through and through, and honestly I don't have a great answer still. God's gift of unconditional love often comes in human form, so Job's suffering reminds us that we are not alone in our pain and suffering and that suffering turns us towards each other to lament and share our pain.

But I noticed something a little farther down my walk with God: that Job always spoke to God and prayed to God, even when things seemed hopeless, even when he lost everything and lost his family. The point is that Job always turned towards God, even when he was angry, even when he was upset, even when there seemed like there was no point.

He realized that he didn't understand how God really worked, and to obey and to turn towards God was the most, as human beings, we could do. I, too, would one day want to meet Job, maybe in the next world, and ask him how he did it, even in the most trying of times. What was his life after Satan was done testing him? What did he learn?

There are the five choices I have for my life-long writing group. I also challenge Nikki Kay, Erik Brown, Mason Sabre, ZUVA, and Juliette Roanoke to take part in the Promposity Prompt.