Tomorrow (October 2nd) is my birthday. I’ll be 67. Usually I like to spend the day quietly; reflecting on my life, and thinking about what I’d like to do in the next year. Eating some good food and maybe a homemade apple pie does help the thinking process. 🙂
As part of that life reflection process, I thought I’d tell y’all a bit of my life as it pertains to writing. So sit back and enjoy one writer’s story.
I was born into a lower middle-class family. The first of four children and the first grandchild on my dad’s side of the family. Because my mom had a very hard life growing up, she made sure I and my siblings had more than what she had when she was growing up. Back in the 60s, she was the only mom working outside of the home that I was aware of.
Back then there was no such thing as white privilege, because there were no minorities in my world. There was only economic privilege: the haves and the have-nots. And compared to my friends, I was one of the have-nots. Even with my mother working and trying to give us all the things she never got. I did not know privilege growing up. I was bullied and made fun of throughout my school years. I was awkward around people and considered a dweeb by my peers.
Being un-privileged and an outsider, meant I grew up without many friends, and was often rather lonely. To fill in all the alone time, I developed a very active imagination. Which has served me well as a writer.
Ever since I can remember I was a reader. My mom wasn’t a good reader, but she made sure I never lacked for books. There was always money for me to buy books from the Weekly Reader and the Scholastic Book Club at school.
Among the first books I remember reading were Scrambled Eggs Super by Dr Seuss; Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff; Sherlock Holmes; Edgar Allan Poe; Saki; Groff Conklin’s Omnibus of Science Fiction; Men, Martians and Machines by Eric Frank Russell; Costigan’s Needle by Jerry Sohl; and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Hunt Collins (aka Evan Hunter, aka Ed McBain). Notice the adult books in the mix. They were courtesy of the books my uncles left behind, which I found at my grandparents’s house.
My parents also bought a set of World Book Encyclopedias, and I remember spending hours reading them.
I loved books. And still do. I think I can honestly say, they have been my best friends.
And because of my love for books, ever since I can remember I wanted to be a writer. I loved books so much, I wanted to write them.
In spite of my mom’s encouragement to read, neither she nor my dad were at all encouraging of my interest in writing. Nevertheless, they didn’t stop me from getting subscriptions to The Writer and Writer’s Digest when I was in junior high. I suppose they thought my interest in writing was a passing fancy and their steady encouragement for me to pursue a “real career” would eventually win the day. Sad to say, it did for most of my life.
The first thing I remember writing was a pastiche of Jules Verne’s From Earth To The Moon. Instead of the Moon, my spaceship went to Mars. I suppose I was somewhere around eight years old at the time.
The next thing I recall writing was a play while in my 11th grade drama class. The teacher had the class perform it, and I suppose I could call that my first “publishing credit”.
The first piece of writing I had accepted by an editor was a poem in a horror fanzine called The Diversifier. That was around 1971. And poetry remained my sole published output until 2014.
I wrote a few short stories, an attempt at a children’s book, and a novel during those decades, all of which earned me some very fine rejection slips. Very fine, indeed.
It was, though, my poetry that gained me a modicum of fame in the late 1990s and early 2000s. No money. There is no money in poetry writing. None whatsoever. If one is a poet, one must find satisfaction in something other than money. Success must be defined other than monetarily.
Which is why I’m probably satisfied with the pittance I make off my novels, novellas, and short stories. Sure, I’d like to make thousands of dollars every month instead of $10, $20, or $30. But for me, thanks to poetry, success isn’t measured solely by a piece of paper with some dead guy’s mug on it.
At the height of my poetry success, I quit. I was nearing retirement age and, on one of those birthday meditations, decided I wanted to pursue writing fiction for the rest of my life. And so I quit writing poems and started writing novels.
The going was difficult, at first, until I found a writing method that worked for me. And when I did, the words just began to flow.
The Rocheport Saga was first (some 2200+ handwritten pages — it was the guinea pig), along with Do One Thing For Me. Those two were followed by Trio in Death-Sharp Minor, and a completely re-written Festival Of Death (the original dates from 1989), and The Moscow Affair.
My first four books were published in November 2014. I was now an independent author-publisher. And I haven’t looked back. To date I have 25 published books, with number 26 coming out Halloween week.
I retired in January 2015 and have been writing full-time and learning about publishing ever since.
Life is indeed good. I’m living a dream first expressed over 60 years ago. And I’m feeling good.
I’m a very happy man, even without making the money Patterson, or King, or Cussler make. Or even that which my fellow indie authors, such as Mark Dawson, Michael Anderle, TS Paul, PF Ford, or Patty Jansen, make.
What matters is I’m writing. And that’s all that matters.
Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!
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