My Path to Getting Published: The Blog Tour

I tried to give

Brooke Fossey

the blog tour/cheese touch for the "My Writing Process" blog tour, and she turned around and tagged me on Twitter for the "My Path to Getting Published: The Blog Tour." Click on her name to read her fabulous post.  She even has pie charts.  Not only do I not have pie charts for this post, I don't have any death stuff lined up for this week, so here goes...

1. Where are you on your publishing path?

Right now, my memoir "Death Becomes Us" is out on submission, which is crazy fantastic, but is also making me a bit anxious.  The thing with memoir is that rejection feels personal.  "You mean you don't like me?"  Waaaaaaah!!!

I have to remind myself that I am simply a character in a really important story about other people.  I'm just the messenger.   Plus,

rejection

is part of writing.  If you're not getting rejected, you're not submitting.  And if you're not submitting, you will never be published.

2. How long has it taken you to get there?  

I first began writing with the intent to publish in about 2005, so nine years.  I began writing "Death Becomes Us" in 2008. 

3. What’s your journey looked like thus far?  

If memory serves, I was first published in the phone book in 2006. Seriously. I used to work for Directory Plus in Durango, Colorado and they published an essay I wrote about cell phones in the phone book.  Jealous? I know, it's pretty darn impressive.

My first "real" published piece was in issue 33 of

Creative Nonfiction

, which came out in 2007.  I attended a workshop with Lee Gutkind, CNF's editor, in Ouray, Colorado and at this conference, he told me I was a "horrible public speaker."  That stung.  But, he apparently liked the essay I submitted because it was a runner up in their contest and I even made some dough from it.  They also turned that issue into a book, "Silence Kills: Speaking Out and Saving Lives."

Mostly, I've been published in literary journals, which means that a very small, select group of people have actually read my writing.  It's funny, but I thought that once I got published in print that something magical would happen, like I'd be handed the keys to the writer room by an elf or a dragon.  That didn't happen.  

4. What’s your future look like?

Do I look like Cleo, the "Call me now" lady?

I don't live in the future.  My feel are firmly planted in today where I am writing a blog post about publishing.  All I have to do is press "Publish" and it's out there on the world wide web.  Whoa.  

After that, I'm going to write two pages and then I'm going to brush my teeth, wash my face, kiss my family goodnight and go to bed.

As before, I am not going to tag five other people.  If you want to write your own blog post using these questions, I say go for it.

All write, all write, all write!