Writing

     My first publication was a short story called "The Weather Man," which I wrote in 1989 and which found homes in a couple of basement zines.  I was paid in contributor copies.  If I ever become a well-known author, the story may pop up again in a book similar to First Words, which showed the first efforts of authors like Stephen King and Michael Crichton.  It will prove that everyone starts at the bottom, especially me, whose first story belongs on the bottom of a bird cage.

     The second story I published was called "The Children," which found a home in my university's literary magazine in 1991.  The story itself was terrible, but apparently I had some skill with dialogue, which is how I got in (but just barely).

If you don't count snarky letters to the editor, I was published in my local newspaper twice, once with a story about being lost in Verona, Italy while looking for Juliet's (of the Shakespeare play) house and once about my first date with my husband, which I called "The Anchovy Criterion."

     In 1998, while my husband was out of town, I took five days off from work to write "The Pretenders," a script for the Highlander  television series.  I was naive enough to believe that I could submit it to the producers and get it made into an episode of the show.  With only a couple of pages to go, I took time out to watch the show, only to see Ritchie, the character my script was built around, killed off.  Still, I registered it with the Writers Guild, and I like to think that one day they'll make a movie with a similar storyline and have to pay me for the original idea (instead of suing me for copyright infringement).  Everyone has crazy dreams.

     My writing professor insisted that I take a poetry class, and despite my reluctance, three fairly good poems resulted.  The first, "12:00" was published in the university magazine in 2000.  The second, "Epitaph" won  an honorable mention in a regional contest in 2001 and second place at another regional contest that same year.  This was the first time I ever earned money ($50) from my writing.  The last poem "For Hal" is a love sonnet for my husband, Hal (now my late husband), and may only see the light of day in the front matter of my books.

     My first--and so far severely flawed--novel, Dancing Lessons is a science fiction story about a grounded military pilot who is placed in command of a small detachment on a planet colonized by humans.  He discovers that the colonists have been secretly living and working with an alien species, the first ever encountered.  I may turn this into a graphic novel or a screenplay, perhaps even a miniseries.  I fantasize that it will be shown to great acclaim on the SciFI channel.  In the meantime, I entered a sample chapter or two in contests, winning an honorable mention in 2002.

     My most successful piece to date is a short story called "The Gift," which first won a contest on a writer's website I belonged to that is no longer in operation (I won a Sensa pen).  It also won an honorable mention and a first place award ($100) in 2003.  Both were contests held in conjunction with regional writers conferences.

     Following "The Gift" I wrote "Role of Stamps."  (That's not a misspelling.)  It's about dinner at an Italian restaurant and the strange conversations I had with my husband about some leftover one-cent stamps.  I think it's funny and insightful, but so far no one agrees with me. I last submitted it to Smithsonian magazine and got a quick rejection. 

     In September 2006, I entered a short story called "The Turtle" in a state-wide contest held by the Virginia Writers Club, where it won first place ($100). I am most proud of this accomplishment, since I was up against writers I knew and respected. 

     In April 2007 I took an old short story that I'd been fiddling with for a few years and reworked it as piece of flash fiction.  Originally called "The Transporter," it had never quite come together, but in its new incarnation, "Cabal," it seems to work.  I submitted it to my writers club hoping to win one of its back-page contests and get published in the club newsletter.  I didn't win.  I'm currently reworking it in the hope that it will be accepted by Norm Sherman and read on his Drabblecast.

     In April 2007 I was hired by a writing and research firm to write web content.  For the first time, I could call myself a writer without feeling a pretentious.  I was a writer who really writes and gets paid to do it rather than someone who is unemployed but dreams of becoming a successful author.  I worked for this firm as an independent contractor for a little over a year, earning about $8,000 before the work ran out.  Somewhere on the Internet (I can't say where), there are about 500 articles written by me.

     In September 2007 my mother died, and my father lost not only a spouse of 46 years but his proofreader.  Like most left-brain types, Dad's not really good at writing, and he needs someone to check his reports and correspondence.  I took over this task, but it came after my paid writing work.  It didn't take Dad long to figure out that he'd be at the top of my "to-do" list if he started paying me.  So now I can call myself an editor as well. 

     In the summer of 2008, while I was grieving my husband's death from stomach cancer, I learned about a national essay contest called First Person Impressions, which was being held by First Person Arts in Philadelphia, PA.  I wrote "Dextrose," a memoir about Hal's last week of life.  I had high hopes for this piece; at the time I was more interested in getting it in print to memorialize Hal than in a writing credit for myself.  For a while, I made plans to attend the 2008 "Take a Meeting" screenwriters conference in New York, NY and then stop in Philadelphia for the literary festival held in conjunction with the contest.  When I didn't win First Person Impressions, I decided not to go to New York, either.

      Which brings me to why I was considering attending a screenwriters conference.  In August 2008 I started another novel, a contemporary romance about a musician and an astronomer who had a terrible secret.  After many false starts, I realized that the darned thing wanted to be a movie, not a book, so I wrote a screenplay in about four 18-hour days.  As I always do right after finishing something, I at first thought it was perfect and brilliant, and so made plans to go to "Take a Meeting" and pitch it.  By October, I realized I needed to do a lot more work on "Step by Step," which is why I didn't go to New York.  However, I did join the Virginia Screenwriters' Forum, where I hope to learn more about screenwriting and get some feedback on my work.  It seems now that screenwriting might be my niche because I now have a completed and registered short subject, "The Hook," and an idea for a fourth screenplay (an adaptation of Dancing Lessons is the third).  I've never had this many projects in work at once.  I will submit "The Hook" for feedback in January.

     In the meantime, although I'm no longer active in the Virgina Writers Club (the price of gas in 2008 was a factor), I continue to participate in my local chapter, which I formed from an unaffiliated writers group I belonged to.  Once a month, the chapter meets and critiques the work of 2 or 3 members.  In October 2008 I submitted pages from "Step by Step" to the Virginia Screenwriters' Forum and was invited to join.  Every month, the forum meets in Richmond to critique parts of 2 members' screenplays.  I also belong to Toastmasters, which meets twice monthly.  My goal is to become a competent public speaker, which will be useful when I lead my creativity groups, go on book tours, speak at conferences, etc.  All these things are in my future (I hope), and I want to be prepared to do a good job.  I may not ever make a living as a writer, even if I do well, but I can as a speaker and teacher.  That's my dream--and a necessity, since I no longer have a spouse to support me.