On my search for certifiable employment, I have dabbled into “real” writing, as in some people actually complete books. I know I’m capable of writing for newspapers and magazines, but what about a short story or a book or a poem or an essay?
In my search (or you might call it “stalking”) for a job or an agent or an editor, I stumbled upon a website, mswishlist.com. You would think that this would help in my search for an agent for either the book I’ve completed about living with Dan and autism, or maybe it’ll give me some inspiration for the other two fiction books I’ve started. Umm, no.
There are reputable agents who post on the website. I know this because I’ve googled just about all of them. The thing is, most of the agents who post there are younger than my most recently purchased bra.
As if this isn’t enough to make my eyes water, they use all these terms that I can’t begin to understand and they seem to know what they’re talking about.
“I’m searching for a YA with an MC who’s BI but with a Sci-Fi edge.”
“Please send me a blue collar MC with a paranormal twist set on an 1851s whaling ship with a vampire captain.”
Are you kidding me?
You can’t help but think that the next great thing you must write to be even looked at is the story of Jill the asexual ghost of a pirate who just had sex with a man who she thought was a woman but that’s okay because it’s all a fantasy thought up by a 14 year old. According to what I’ve trolled (stalked) online, that shit will sell like hotcakes.
I want to write like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Carson McCullers. I want a kind patron to put me up in Vermont or New York City or a beach house for a few months so that I can afford to live and write at the same time.
All those great stories of discovery, just like the Hollywood girls discovered at the drug store in 1951, don’t happen hardly ever now.
This doesn’t leave me much to do but to keep writing. Keep putting words on the screen. Keep looking at them later to see if they remotely make sense. Keep printing them out for my kids to read and for my writing group to look over.
I’ve never been where I am now. I don’t have a “real” job. I’ve spent close to 30 years writing for newspapers and now I do that in what my mom would have said is a “half-ass” way. I have to agree with her. I feel half-ass. I’m not paying a mortgage with my writing money anymore. I’m lucky if it pays for groceries. I’m not used to depending on something or someone else.
Sometimes I think, “Why did God decide now was a good time to fuck with me?” Then I already know the answer, He couldn’t do it earlier because He knew I had to take care of serious shit. Now He’s thinking…let this girl put up or shut up.
Hey J.C., I’m trying.
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