I have been writing all my life. Ever since the dog “Noodles” wouldn’t eat the advertiser’s dog food, I knew there were stories everywhere and I just needed to write them down. (see “The Thing We Do, Feb 25th 2025)
Writing and publishing are two different things.
I can’t stop writing. It just comes out of me. It’s what I do, it’s who I am. Stories are everywhere, happening all around us. What’s not to write about? I cannot count the files stored on my desktop of all the stories I have written, edited, rewritten or morphed into other pieces, or how many have totally hit the “G” file.
But getting published?
To date, I have published a handful of pieces (maybe five) in one obscure journal or anthology or other equally obscure website that no one reads outside of friends and family members to whom I have sent the links. I am showered with their appropriate praise and “atta-girls” after they read them, and while I do not discount their praises and acknowledgements, I wrestle with the question if I am a “real” writer, dare I claim a published author?
One time I was paid twenty-five dollars for an entry that was published in a now-defunct journal. I never cashed the check. Like a greenhorn, I framed the check and hung it up on the wall above my desk so that every time I doubt my own value as a writer, proof positive hangs in front of me that verifies I am a professional author. I got paid for the work I created, didn’t I? Just like any other professional gets paid for the work they do. That enthusiasm lasted just long enough for me to realize that every other piece I have ever submitted since then to countless journals and contests and anthologies has been politely but summarily declined with a heartfelt note explaining that my work isn’t quite a fit for their publication but to continue writing, they’d like to read more from me later.
Yeah, I’ll get right on that.
I hated the feeling of running around with or (e)-mailing around my wares hoping someone would like what they read and decided I would be a “fit” for them. I don’t know who’s reading what these days, but I have to wonder what a 30-year-old editor has in common with the depth of my life after seventy years.
Now in an ironic twist with the neo-twenty-first-century protocols and demands for inclusivity, I am excluded from submitting my work because I do not fit into any of the categories considered to be the “underrepresented populations.” But I am underrepresented just by their exclusion of me. It’s a mix-up world for sure.
Breaking into the traditional publishing world was a nightmare when I was a wanna-be journalism student five decades ago, and after just a quick glance at traditional publishing requirements these days (agents, social media platforms, followers, hits, likes) I decided no thank you. I am not in the running with the generation of writers who were probably born online and have been posting their “stuff” ever since.
But still I write. Not for money. Not for fame. Not for likes or followers or “friends” I’ll never meet.
I write because I can’t not write.
I did get anxious once wondering what I was going to do with all the pieces I have stored on my desktop when I leave the planet, so I took the plunge and decided to get at least one thing out there that will be a physical reminder that for however long, I was here. It might not be important to anyone else but besides the human drive to procreate, (it never even flickered in me) I believe we humans have the need to prove that we were here. At least for a while.
From Jay to Kay started off as a piece about a friend of mine who I hadn’t seen in a long time, and I was imagining the phone conversation we would have when we did reconnect. We always spent hours on the phone. We probably solved a lot of the world’s problems (well, at least our own) while the long-distance wires hummed, and the charges racked up by the minute. Ma Bell was a great alternate therapist.
What came out of the short-story idea turned into a novel-length memoir of friendship, love, and acceptance. I didn’t plan it that way. It just came out of me. All of it.
I didn’t go the traditional publishing route. If I had, I would still be running around to post offices sending off boxes of author’s copies to publishing houses that probably would not have even pulled the tape off the sealed tops. I went the Amazon KDP route with the guidance and skill of my brilliant and talented editor. I think I have sold 10 copies ( that might be a generous estimate)
And as I finished writing From Jay to Kay, I realized I wasn’t fished yet; there is a whole story that happened before I got to From Jay to Kay. And I know there is another one after that.
“A trilogy?” You ask.
Maybe. But for me, it’s just writing.
It’s what I do.
Janice *hopes* to get her second memoir, title still pending (but right now it has something to do with a bus) published by December 2026.
If the winds are right and gods are smiling…