On Publishing

I used to think that to be a writer you had to publish something major. A huge reason I started a blog was because I was impatient. I wanted to believe that there would be a type of recognition in putting myself out there somehow. To get my roses. I was afraid to go through the journey that would somehow magically help me get a book into one of those display windows you see while walking the avenue. It turns out, I’ve been writing for the wrong reasons for a very long time.

There’s always going to be someone better than you. This is a sentence I’ve heard many times throughout my life. It was enough to keep me from trying. I don’t try a lot of the time, because I get too in my head about what something is supposed to look like. I want it to be perfect. A story. A book. A poem. Hell, I’m no businessman. But this is a poor pitch – to reveal how the solitude of a writer’s life often leads to a lifetime of questioning one’s purpose. I guess I’m not doing this to be the best, better than anyone. I’m doing this to make the experience of my life a little more real to me.

I haven’t gotten anything published. I can certainly try to go down the route of getting it in the hands of many people I don’t know. But what’s the point if I’m not doing it for myself? The reason I began writing was because I had witnessed the death of my pet rabbit at an early age. I used writing to hide what I actually felt in a militaristic family, where the contexts of church, military protocol, and family structure ruled my life.

Somewhere in the metaverse, there’s someone else like me. Maybe they are better at this than I am. Perhaps they also have experienced the gripping reality that the stories in our lives have a beginning, middle, and end. I don’t want to get published really. I just want to do this for the right reasons.