Recently two of my friends received contracts to publish their first novels. Both will be ePublished, the other will also be in print. I will be helping both with PR work.
I am very happy for both of them, and I am looking forward to adding more PR to my portfolio. I will be working with the marketing department of at least one of the publishing houses, and I hope to learn a lot and be able to use these experiences to further my writing-related business in the future.
On another note, I am a tad jealous. Why isn’t my book being published? I have had more than one former classmate ask me on FaceBook what name I’m writing under because they have been unable to find my books. Uncomfortable, awkward silence follows my response that I don’t have anything published. I quickly add that I have made my living writing articles instead and have formally worked as a reporter. But why haven’t my books been published? One reason is that I haven’t finished anything.
I have never submitted anything or even tried to submit anything. Of course as a non-established and unpublished author you would have to actually write the manuscript before you could submit a portion of it to a potential agent, editor or publisher.
Over the years, my writing has seriously suffered. I haven’t submitted a query letter to a print magazine in forever and I haven’t written anything personal other than a blog that serves as my diary/journal and poems in years. How can I call myself a writer then?
The success of my two friends has served as a wakeup call. I have to step up my game and now is the time. I have mentioned quitting and giving up more than once but those who are closest to me won’t hear of it. They refuse to let me give up. Why? Because they believe in me. I trust and respect these people so I need to believe in me as well. I can do this. I really can.
I know depression has played a major role in all of this. The depression didn’t set in until I was in Wyoming. Before Katrina and the ill-fated move to Wyoming, I was doing fine. I was growing my writing business and I was able to pay all of my bills from payment I received from writing and writing related-work. My family and I also had some fun money, not a lot, but enough where we could go out and eat when we wanted to and take a trip to the beach. Oh how I miss those days.
Now my days are filled with me sitting in front of the computer and trying to write. Not trying hard enough and I know it but I am trying. I get bored very easily, which was a problem I didn’t have before while I was working. It was a job and I would do the research and write the article the same, as I would do whatever task I had before when I worked in an office job. I have to find a way to get back to that routine.
I also took time every night to work on my private writing. I believe the isolating myself from the world causing a severe lack of a social life and now being able to reconnect with friends on and through social networks has hindered this. I want to play with real live people, not just the voices inside my head. What I have to do now is find a balance. I miss my writing. I want to finish my stories, not just to submit them for possible publication but to be able to say I finished a story that I didn’t write in middle or high school.
I am considering self ePublishing a short I wrote during high school. I am considering attempting to expand the story though and if I do I am concerned how self publishing could affect any possible chances of having it published.
Living with depression is hard. In my mind, being a professional writer, accountable only to yourself multiply that depression at least 10 fold. Add living with a depressed and ill mother whose health, welfare and care are your sole responsibility, and at times it is near impossible to even contemplate rising above. I will continue to try though.
Again, congratulations to my two friends, and I will keep trying and I will keep you updated on my writing progress.
Write on.
