As long as I can remember, I have wanted to write. I would say "wanted to be a writer" but I don't think that quite sums up the burning to put ideas to paper. I want to get these ideas into the air, drag them kicking and screaming from the hidden recesses of my brain and expose them, squinting, to the light of day.
I first felt this itch, this burning, when I was in third grade. We each had to write a story, and I created a small, strange little world of Robbie the Rocket and a ghost. I don't remember it well, but that was...longer ago than I'd like to count right at the moment. And at the moment that I finished that story, I was hooked. Not only did I get to create something and not be scolded for "making up stories", but I got to read it afterwards, and explore the world I had created in my head. There was nothing better to my eight-year-old mind.
By fourth grade, I had discovered poetry. That went over even better for a time, because adults actually liked my poetry. I was even forced to read one of my verses on the intercom before (or was it after?) the Pledge of Allegiance when I was in fifth grade. Suddenly, I had recognition! As shy as I was (and I was so painfully shy), being recognized for something I had done in a good way was both exhilarating and mortifying.
I couldn't, and didn't, stop writing. I wrote stories. I wrote essays. I wrote poetry. When I was a teenager, the poetry became the voice for my deep depression. Somewhere, I still have it. I probably should have burned it, but that would be like burning your children.
Or perhaps just your mirror.
When I was in my twenties, all my writing was channeled into writing long explanations to myself to try to figure out why and how I was so effed up. They were deeply analytical, vaguely lyrical, and hideously depressing. They also allowed for a degree of introspection and self-realization that may have been impossible without. Alas, I'm afraid many of those are also still lingering, largely because most of my belongings remain in storage, and I don't want to just burn everything. I would lose too many books.
For a time, I edited a small science fiction magazine owned by my best friend. I wrote for it as well, poetry, stories and articles. That was the best damned job I have ever had in my life, and if we had continued with the success we were enjoying we would probably still be doing it. However, we learned the hard way that, no matter how good a relationship you have with a printer, GET IT IN WRITING! The last issue of the magazine was published in 1991. We lost $0.60 on each and every one of the 200 copies because the printer changed managers, doubled the price, and screwed up every single copy. $120.00 was way too much for us to lose, and we were forced to stop publishing due to intense poverty. Someday we'll bring it back, perhaps as a web-zine, but it hasn't happened yet.
As a married mom to a small child, I tried very hard to get back to writing. I wrote a story for a contest, then realized it was way too long so I just sat on it. I wrote lots of bits and pieces of things, then divorced my husband because he was a dick. An abusive dick.
Then I had to work (hard) to make a living.
And that's where I stand now. I work a lot, and I try to take time to write. Now that my (same) best friend and I have his writers' group going again, I'm even somewhat motivated to write. Since the Graphites regeneration in July, I've finished two short stories. Considering the number of novels and short stories I started in the last ten years and failed to finish, I think I'm starting a good roll.
So this brings us to the Quest.
What I want, more than anything, is to write, get published, and get paid to write so that I have time to write. Working a forty hour a week desk job twenty miles from home is great, but it takes too much time away from writing. We depend on my desk job--I do not have the luxury of being able to quit to dedicate myself to it, no matter how many ideas are fluttering at the lantern, begging to be burned.
I have started by sending friend requests to just about any published author I can find on Facebook. It's not so much that I think that being linked to published authors is some kind of panacea that will make time management for my writing easier, or make it simpler to get published. I'm far too realistic for that kind of thing.
My reasoning is two-fold. First of all, networking is a fine and wonderful thing. That's half the reason Julian started his writers' group in the first place. You find yourself connecting to the most amazing people, and sometimes you connect with someone that can really help you. And sometimes you connect with someone that...you can really help. And there's nothing quite like people helping each other.
The second fold of my reasoning is that...writers are people, too. They have kids, divorces, grief, grocery trips, psychoses, illnesses, writers' block, and often even day jobs. There's nothing quite so inspiring as seeing someone else accomplish what you want to accomplish from a position not so different from your own. At the very least, it makes your position seem much more promising.
So to all those writers whom I recently friended (and I have been shocked at the sheer number, so my apologies for not thanking you each personally), thank you so much for accepting my friend request, and may we all be happily published with our own various and sundry genres.
Let's wish us all massive success!
Now I just need to know if I'm half as good as my best friend seems to think I am.
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