Who am I?
An Emerging
Writer
Some might call me an emerging writer, but that’s only because the
Internet and the current course of e-publishing is making it possible for me to
share my work as never before. In recent years, I have professionally published
poetry in small press, low budget publications. In recent months, I have
digitally self-published two poetry chapbook-length collections and a handful of
short stories, all of which can be found wherever ebooks are sold. I have
written several novels, but have published none. I did go through the formal
submission process once, in the early 1990s. The book wasn’t ready, I wasn’t
ready, and I am very thankful my work was rejected at the time. I intended to go
for it again a few years ago, particularly after a unique encounter with Tom
Doherty of Tor. I had a private, unexpected moment with him at the World Fantasy
Con in Madison, Wisconsin. Through the course of a brief discussion, I noticed
him eyeing my name tag, and I decided I needed to take advantage by rushing
home, hurriedly polishing off my latest novel, and getting it on his desk while
my name might still ring a bell. Sadly, life intervened. Once I returned home,
writing -- or the business of writing, anyway -- had to be pushed behind other
pressing priorities. Now it is far too late to imagine he might ever remember
the name of an “emerging” writer who did him a kindness that was in fact nothing
more than an ethical imperative.
In short, I am not “emerging.” Scouting around for readers,
certainly. Hoping to catch the eye of agents and editors, absolutely. But to say
I’m “emerging” makes it sound like I’m new to writing. That is far from the
truth. Now that I have officially started the second half of my first century on
this planet, I can honestly say I’ve been writing for nearly fifty years. I’ve
loved words since I first started learning them, and once proudly strode through
the house spelling P-O-P precisely because I could (spell it, that is). The
first poem I can attest to writing was of the “roses are red” variety, inscribed
in a handmade Mother’s Day card I rediscovered a few years ago when sorting some
of my mother’s things. As to my last poem…well, let’s hope that doesn’t get
written until many years from now.
A Well-Rounded Writer
I have formally taught English to American teenagers and Korean
adults. Informally, I coach anyone who asks. My husband considers me his own
personal walking dictionary. (Why bother using spellcheck when you can holler
down the stairs?) At work, I do a fair amount of technical writing, although
I am not officially a technical writer. I moonlight as a writer of Internet
articles. I write poetry to stay sane. I write fanfiction to feed my love of
characters other writers have given the world, and also to hone my writing and
storytelling skills. I write original fiction to give life to characters that
otherwise would remain trapped in my soul.
Kindred Spirit to Ernest Hemingway
I share a birthday with Ernest Hemingway and was born the very year
he died, roughly two weeks before his…our…birthday. There is little else I share
with him, however, besides a drive to write. Our words are different. Our voices
are different. Our stories are different. I say we share a “drive” to write
because no other word really fits. I might have said a “love” of writing or a
“passion” to write, but it’s more than that…it’s deeper than that. It is a
physical, mental and emotional imperative. I am, therefore I
write.
World Builder
I’ve been world building since the mid-1980s, when a spontaneous
writing assignment in college (write an arbitrary story scene, the first
thing that comes to mind) drove me to ‘quest’ deeper to figure out what
battle my knightly character had just left, and what was the significance of his
sword, and…well…the questions never stopped. I built a world, a language,
dialects, a religion, a mythology, a history. In fact, I went all the way back
in time to establish my world’s creation story. And then I built another world.
And another. And….
Born-Again (Revivified?) Storyteller
And now that I have begun the second half of my first century on
this world we all share, I have decided I didn’t spend all those years
discovering all those answers to all those questions only to have them fall to
dust in some obscure corner of a cellar no one will ever visit after I’m gone.
It’s time to raise my hand, wave it around a bit, shout a few “yoo-hoo’s!” and
see what I can do to bring that dust back to life -- while creating new life
with new stories and new worlds along the way.
