Word Count: 1087

Reaching For

the Brass Ring

Most people tend to get more than a bit frustrated when things don’t go the way I want them too. I’m no exception to that particular rule. Ostensibly when it comes to something I’ve been working and hoping will happen for a very long time. Working quite diligently at it too, I might add. This is sort of like the proverbial Sisyphus character who’s been pushing that huge-ass boulder up the hill. Only in my case, I’ve been inching the rock up the slope with lots of the powers-that-be angels completely ignoring my efforts. Just to have the hernia-inducing-object slide back down the elevated incline in a not-so-record time.

What am I referring to? This writing obsession of mine. I first got serious about my humorous writing way back in 1994 while working at the Telluride Times-Journal newspaper (since defunct…) as a graphic artist.

I’d read an article that we printed in the entertainment section of that week’s newspaper, and made the fatal mistake of getting home only to make the audacious error of telling myself I had the ability to do better at it. I say “fatal mistake” since I wasn’t exactly getting into this writing game at an early period in my life. You’re better off moving into these sorts of career pathways at a younger age. Maybe in your teens, or even as a youngster below the age of about ten? Like right about the time you get more pleasure out of scribbling words on a page rather than playing with the latest toy your parents just purchased. You know the one I’m talking about, the gadget you and your siblings are about to begin fighting over.

Reminds me of that lyric from one of my favorite musicians of all time, Dan Fogelberg. Dan wrote a song called, “Changing Horses”, and I will go to my grave remembering the lyrics at the beginning of the song;

“Changing Horses in the Middle of a Stream,

Gets You Wet and Sometimes Cold.

Changing Faces in the Middle of a Dream,

Gets you Old. Oh, Gets You Old…”

I was thirty-five at the time. Not exactly a Spring Chicken if you want to succeed as a semi-successful athlete, or look to do the writing stuff as a career option.

Right after that, I started writing. At first, just as a casual hobby, but then as I started spending more and more time doing it, the obsession evolved. What was once a nonchalant avocation had suddenly been transformed into a daily task. Here’s probably the most ironic thing that happened at the time. I was working as a struggling artist, and even found myself making minor (“Minor” being the operative word…”) money in order to pay the bills.

I liked to paint (creative cavass rendering). As I spent more and more time writing, I suddenly quit painting. Some folks have asked me why I dropped the painting avocation/hobby. Even after the completion of three years at art school, and working in the field for over six years after that. Here’s the answer.

Their query hits the nail right on the head. Painting was just that, a “hobby”, and I first realized this right after I’d written a passage in the latest manuscript I was working on at the time. Suddenly realizing that I’d gone for almost five months without picking up a paint brush. All this while continuing to write on a daily basis. Don’t you hate it when those sorts of things happen to you?

This forced me into a conundrum of not-so-epic-proportions. It was probably too late in life for me to consider going into a Creative Writing Program at the college level. Plus, I didn’t really have the time or funds to do that sort of thing either.

My solution was about what you’d expect from me; pull myself up by the proverbial boot-straps and double down. Continue to do the writing thing. Since I didn’t really know what the Hell I was doing, this meant the early scribbling was as the saying goes, “Pure Garbage”. Let’s be honest shall we, the early writing output had a smell not unlike that of a dumpster out back of your average pre-school day-care center.

I kept at it, and started getting my hands on every instructional book I could get a hold of. Then reading, and trying to follow their advice to the letter. Anybody that ever tells you they were self-taught when it comes to learning their respective career path, is lying. Everybody has to start somewhere, and this is the way I’ve ended up doing it. I don’t think that’s being self-taught. Lying? Can’t pin that one on me.

Since that time twenty-eight years ago, I’ve attempted to write (and edit…) all sorts of stuff. Fiction as well as Non-Fiction. Essays, as well as Short Stories, and Novel-length manuscripts too. Six of them, only the last two novels even remotely good enough to see the radiant light of publication.

The only requirement is that the writing has to have a humorous bent to it. So much fun for yours truly that there are lots of times when I’m writing that I don’t want to stop. Waking up at 3:00 am and not getting back to sleep often results in me booting up the computer and writing whatever I’m working on at the time. Is that the definition of, ”passion”? Maybe it is? Maybe it isn’t? Only my hairdresser knows for sure.

That brings us to the ultimate objective for writing this essay. The frustration thing stems from my efforts to get this latest novel-length manuscript published the traditional way. Landing a literary agent (the publishing industry angels…), getting a major publisher (only five of them left in this country…), and going the full nine yards with the social media. That last one won’t be so easy since I refuse to do anything remotely related to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Linked-In.

After sending out lots of Query Letters in the past three years to prospective Literary Agents, only to receive the obligatory form rejection letter, then not getting any sort of recognition due to the fact that I’m your average, gluten-enhanced, non-conventional, nobody, my solution is this. I’ve decided to go the self-publishing route with this latest manuscript.

Will I manage to grab onto that elusive brass ring? Who knows whether or not that will ever happen. In this case, only my clairvoyant knows for sure.