Sorta random fact. I've been writing in various mediums for close to 30 years. The argument could be made that it has been a bit longer. However, it was a little over twenty-five years ago (closer to the twenty-eight mark) that I began to take myself seriously as a writer and to some extent as an artist though there are specifics to that which go back a bit further.
It was circa 1993 or 1994 that I first submitted my work any sort of competition. I won second place and had my work analyzed by a writing professor who at the college where the competition was held. (My friend Morgan, who I've forgotten the married name of, not to mention have not spoke with in years, won first place if I recall correctly. Morgan was extremely talented, kinda enigmatic at times, and reminded me of a young Natalie Merchant with red hair. She works in the airline industry now as I recall.) The analysis inspired me to write a follow up piece to the work. The poem that won second place was called "Tarts" and the follow-up was called "Tangy". The two pieces were about addiction, madness, and Alice in Wonderland depending on your perspective. I wrote a third piece called Asylum that kind of existed in that same stream of thought though I had other thoughts on my mind when writing it as well.
It was also 1993 that I wrote several other pieces during the "Blizzard of '93" that began collections that I've always known were not quite complete but never really was sure how to complete them. I will get back to that in a bit. It was during that storm that I realized that I was most comfortable writing and that I wanted to pursue a career in the arts and entertainment field. This has been on my mind a lot lately. It is one of the driving things that has fueled me a bit since the lung disease diagnosis and other health stuff start getting worse.
Before that, writing was a release for me as it was for many teens. I started writing to deal with people around me. Writing gave me an outlet to say some certain things that could not be 'politely' said aloud. In some cases, some things that might couldn't legally be said to some people. I mean my pre-teen and teenage years were not exactly "wine and roses" for various reasons not just for me but for some of the folk who I called friends back then. As my best friend Daniel pointed out to me, "I'm surprised you didn't snap after [this at one point]. I'm surprised you're still alive after [this other point]." And here I am, by hook or by crook if you wish, still full of surprises. Stranger things have happened.
Side note: I mean the great thing about fiction is that you can say a lot things that you couldn't say at the time to some of the people around you. Anyone who says they have never based a character on someone is probably either lying or writing non-fiction. And the great thing about poetry, lyrics, and spoken word is that you can be even more vague about who and what you are talking about if you wish.
And yes, despite the amount of stuff that I've written, my history of being published is scarce by comparison. I've had a few of my poems published. I've done some journalism work. I've had some academic work published. Oh, and the University of West Georgia adapted a piece of mine into a part of their 1998 "Episodes in Sexuality" production. That was all ages ago though by comparison. More recently, I've done some blogging on the Zombie Cat Productions website. I've looked into blogging for a few other outlets over the years. Oh, and the scriptwriting thing. I've been working on a few of those. (I have a draft of one that I co-wrote registered with the Writers Guild of America but whatever.)
Before anyone says anything, I know I should have more stuff published.
I've always said my worst area professionally is 'marketing myself' and, to a lesser extent, marketing my work. Which is odd because I am not completely clueless about marketing. I guess it is because it is my own work and I'm by far a harsher critic of myself than anyone has ever been of me. That might be hard for a few people to believe because I have had a few very harsh (or maybe just deranged) critics. Even if it was not the intended result, I was essentially raised to have low self-confidence about a lot of things and arguably low self-esteem or some sort of inferiority complex. This was largely due to various teachers during my elementary and middle school years. (And I can't say that certain family members helped the matter any.)
Before anyone thinks that I am getting off on some sort of 'sob story', I'm not but the facts are the facts.
And the fact is that the one thing that I've always had confidence about is my writing. (My typing skills maybe not so much but I've always had confidence in my writing.) And I am horrid, or at the very least inept, at the concept of "marketing myself".
That said, the incompleteness of the collection of writing stuff has been on my mind for a while now. I even started a third collection of pieces in 2013 that has also been largely incomplete (though for different reasons). The extent of it being on my mind has involved an idea for a 'fourth collection" that was somewhat of an idea for something else entirely initially.
Contemplating how much of that stuff I can fit into the "fourth collection" of stuff. (Dare I say that it would be called "Harbortown Tales" or something like that.) And well, if we are being honest, if I did what I was thinking about doing, it is not something that I could complete by myself. That is getting ahead of myself though. Again, as I like to say, stranger things have happened.
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