Reading Time: 5 Minutes
I don’t know why I’ve been shy about it for the last eight months.
I was perfectly happy to share the news on my Bluesky account to an audience of roughly 4000 strangers, but when it came time to share this broadly across my friends and family, something held me back.
Maybe it’s because the expectations of strangers are often easier to manage than the expectations of friends of family.
Maybe it’s because I thought the supportive writing community over there would “get it”, and friends and family would feel obligated to try and get it, and I didn’t want to ask that of them.
Last week a switch flipped for me and I realized that, if I’m ever going to make a go at this writing thing, I should probably start telling people I’m doing it.
And so here we are:
In February, at the age of forty-eight, I had my first short story published.
I am officially a published writer.
After a year of submitting stories everywhere I could, I finally had someone take a chance on me and work with me to edit one of my stories for his magazine.
And not only that, after that first acceptance, the next month I had two other short pieces accepted in a flash fiction magazine.
I was ecstatic, yet I hardly told anyone.
I have no answers, just a bunch of maybes, and likely just need to spend some more time with myself on the topic.
I’ve spent some time tonight updating this website, and have added links to those published works over on my All The Words page.
I’ve also listed all the books I’m currently building out and working on, as well as the three completed manuscripts I’m currently querying. It’s been an especially prolific last few months and I’m finally feeling confident enough to share these kinds of updates.
I’ve even started a newsletter, or rather, the idea of a newsletter. The first one will come out next month. You can subscribe to it right from this page and I’ll be using it to stay tight with folks who might be interested in my journey towards getting those novels published.
This site has now also officially evolved: instead of it existing as a random place for musings every nine to twelve months, I’m going to start building this place out a bit more so that it’s more entertaining.
If you’re new to the site and interested in reading some my flash fiction, I’ve got an archive of my #vss365 writing over the last few years where I’ve handpicked some of my better work.
That hashtag has been instrumental in my growth as both a writer and an editor, and every morning I, along with thousands of others, gather around a single prompt word and exercise our creative muscles.
Yes, I write every morning. Sometimes the ideas come in minutes, other times they form as I work my way through my other morning routines, but setting aside that time every day for myself, for a creative act, has been a habit that has changed my life. I encourage you to check them out, because in those short pieces of flash fiction, nuggets for much larger worlds and stories are being born every day.
If you’re on Bluesky or Twitter, give me a follow and catch those daily writes live.
If you’re interested in finding a creative hobby, why not join in? It’s a fantastic community.
So where has this recent confidence come from?
For the last month or so, I’ve started posting videos to my Instagram and Facebook feeds every Friday. Simple musings, thoughts on what was happening that week, ideas that haven’t found another home yet; just spitting out some thoughts to see what would stick.
The response has been amazingly supportive, and I’m humbled by it. People I haven’t seen or heard from in years are taking the time to comment or DM me with encouragement, and the interactions I’m having with folks regularly in real life are suddenly a bit deeper as well. Turns out, if you’re willing to put yourself out there and share, there are many who are happy to reciprocate.
Just like my first foray into flash fiction, this social media sharing is new to me, but it’s helping me find my people and I really feel a community is starting to form.
So that’s where this site update and post come into play. Every community needs a homebase, and I’m hoping my community won’t mind checking in here every once in a while.
Now I guess I just have to start telling people about this site.
Maybe that’s what I’ll talk about this Friday.
If you’re here and you’re reading this, thank you for joining me at the start of this new chapter.
I’m looking forward to seeing where this story goes.
And Then There’s This…
Here’s my video from last week where I finally broke the news to my feeds that I’m now a published writer.
In it, I talk about how the path to publication is riddled with rejection, and how I overcame it with the help of another writing community online.