Tag Archives: memoir

Writing Spaces

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Armed with an iPad and wireless keyboard, I have the ability to write just about anywhere. On a late September day, I drove north in the hope of seeing the first sign of fall displayed in the color of the trees. With the tools of my trade in tow, I stopped to do a little creative work in the library of a small town, Bad Axe, located smack dab in the middle of the thumb of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula. About two and a half hours and 125 miles from home, I stood in the foyer and read through local advertisements, tourist pamphlets, and notices of community events that were tucked along a wall. Intrigued by the pioneer log cabins just across the street, I picked up literature about them in the pamphlet, “Museums of Huron County, Michigan.” Appreciating the vast acres of farmland all around, I also grabbed information on the “Huron County Nature Center.” One unexpected but pleasant surprise (please don’t think I’m as geeky as I appear right now) was the last copy of the “Michigan Antiquarian Book Dealers & Book Binders Directory.” I anticipated that a friend’s name, Phil Rosette, would be somewhere within its pages, so I had to take it. As soon as I found his and his wife’s business listing, I realized the distance from home just didn’t seem all that far away.

I looked forward to the inspiration I might find in this new writing venue. A sign in the foyer requested that cell phone discussions only take place here, a space separated from the rest of the library by glass doors, so I silenced my phone as requested, before going into the computer area. Inside, there were eight computers, three of which were being used by patrons checking e-mail, playing games, and searching the Internet.

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Bad Axe Area District Library

I set up my equipment at a long, unoccupied table and began typing. I made progress on an article until one well-dressed, sport-coat clad gentleman came in. His smile made him look friendly, and I actually thought maybe he was the mayor just stopping by to say hello to friends and neighbors. He sat down at one of the computers and began typing. I didn’t find the clickity-clack of his keyboard to be distracting. Muffled conversations with his constituents were tolerable. But this man’s chomping gum…it was loud, endless, and just as aggravating as fingernails running down a chalkboard. Ugh! I frantically reached for my ear buds, crammed the plug into the jack of my cell phone, and turned up the volume on my music selection. The pop-country music group Rascal Flatts drowned out this professional-looking man’s annoying habit and calmed my nerves. However, I could no longer focus on my writing.

Evidently, I have lost my youthful ability to tune out the world around me in order to concentrate and get my work done. Having grown up in a 900 square-foot home with one sister, two brothers, my parents and a dog, I used to sit at our family’s kitchen table to do my school homework. The TV or radio served as my background noise. Neither kicked out neutral, white noise, but both helped me control the sounds of a busy household environment.

Now a mother to four nearly-independent children, I have the luxury to pursue a lifelong dream: writing my first book. In the past year, I’ve tried writing on airplanes, but I don’t like the thought of anyone peering from behind to read my work-in-progress before it’s been revised and polished. Local coffee shops are out of the question; I might run into someone I know and neglect my work. Libraries would seem to make perfect sense, but here I was failing to appreciate the ambiance.

Immediately, I missed the solitude of my home office, the comfort of my own chair, and a self-indulgent cup of cream-and-sugar-laden coffee. I wondered how other writers could get anything done in public places like airports, coffee shops, and not-so-quiet libraries. I realized that the spaces we choose to write in often reflect our personalities.

My favorite writing space certainly says a lot about me. The office itself is mostly mine. Shelves holding my reference guides, journals, and a voice recorder share space with my husband’s golf and sports memorabilia. Filing cabinets hide my projects, mementos, and ideas squeezed tightly between the kids’ school papers and activity schedules. But it’s the desk that gives away the most telling signs of who I am.

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In the center of the desk is a lamp I purchased because it reminded me of my former pastor, Janet Noble-Richardson. She annually took teenagers who were involved in our church’s youth group from our city of Livonia, Michigan to New Wilmington Mission Conference at Westminster College in Pennsylvania. One year when Janet couldn’t be there, another friend, Linda, and I substituted as chaperones to continue the tradition for the children a little while longer. I spotted the stone lamp during an excursion from the conference to The Silk Road Fair Trade Market.  I was drawn to the piece because it had been made in Pakistan, the place where Janet had spent the first eleven years of her life living with her missionary parents and siblings. I could offer you a hokey explanation that she was like a “light unto the world,” which in fact she was, but that connection never entered my mind until now. Simply, the lamp reminded me of her because it came from the earth where she grew up. I missed her. She died in a car accident in 2006, the year before this trip. Linda still grieved for Janet too. She bought a matching lamp.

As I look at the other items on my desk, I know most of them hold special interest for me. Black and white pictures of my children, dressed in fancy clothes for my brother’s wedding, lie on either side of the lamp. Mr. Bill—yes, the one from Saturday Night Live of long ago—is a gift from my son. An “Angel of Friendship” figurine is from a best friend. My favorite Christmas photo sits out all year long and reminds me of my family’s playful side: that time we were wrapped in ribbons and bows. A bud vase holds pretty, girly, crystal-adorned pencils and pens that contrast with the most recent desktop accessory: one old, ugly, tattered Stieff puppet that I bought at an estate sale. What could have easily ended up in someone else’s trash became a treasure to me when it helped me get to know a friend’s shy five-year-old son. The boy at first thought the monkey was creepy (it is), but after a fun guessing game of I Spy, he affectionately named it “Chocolate.” It now sits over a plastic water bottle and remains one of the best memories I’ve ever bought, and it cost me merely 50 cents.

Besides the personal items, there are almost always piles of papers, the most ominous of which is the stack of “to-dos.” When I get overwhelmed, or take a picture for a blog post, I hide these piles from view and enjoy the multi-faceted illusion of having nothing to do and looking more organized than I am. At ease and surrounded by feelings of love, I leave the TV and radio off, sit down at my computer, and crack open the blinds of my window to the natural beauty outside. Noise can’t compete with my inner thoughts. Aah. This is my favorite writing space.

I’d love to know where your favorite writing space and/or your dream place is.

(One day, I hope to be writing in a beachfront condo overlooking the cool, white, crushed quartz sand that lines the shore in a certain place along the Gulf of Mexico. Maybe it won’t be completely quiet, but it will be peaceful.)

My Little Girl

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What follows is a well constructed memoir piece that looks at the interactions of two people…

 

After several years of marriage, Tim still did not have any children, even though he wished for them.

One day at the Hacienda, a Mexican restaurant, Tim and I had a quick lunch. He had a chimichanga and mine was a chicken dorito with cherry flavored Mexican tea. We tried to solve the world’s problems over lunch: dope issues of the world famous cyclist, Lance Armstrong, stock market crashes, General Motors’ troubles and Chrysler’s bankruptcy.

“I got a little baby girl,” Tim mentioned, changing the subject from gloomy world issues to family affairs.

It was hard for me to understand what he meant. He never mentioned that his wife was pregnant. When he showed affection for children and wanted to have his own kids I asked him if there was a possibility of a pregnancy soon. “My wife can no longer have a baby.” Now, clearly I was told he has a baby girl. What should I say?

“Umm, umm, congratulations,” murmuring and hesitating, I sipped my cold tea to wash down my throat and thinking what “little girl” means. I was digesting the words, “my little girl”.

His wife cannot get pregnant and so they adopted the girl? I changed the subject from “my little girl” to the stock market and told him I bought Ford stock at $1.80 per share about a year ago at the bottom price. Now it is $6. I always brag about the $1.80 per share of Ford stock, even though I bought very few shares, and also do not say that I bought it at a much higher price on other occasions. I am like the gambler who told us all the time about his winnings and never told us about his losses.

“Great! You made lots of money. A rich person like you gets richer and richer, just like the song says, ‘The rich get richer and the poor get children.’”

Tim’s serious facial expression indicated he wondered why I did not ask more questions about the girl. On my side, in order to continue our conversation, I had to buy time to think about what to ask. Avoiding his curious look, I continued, “Not really. The break even point is about $13, long way to go.” I stopped for a few minutes to talk. After washing down my food I continued, “Did you adopt her, where is she from and how old is she?”

He was quite still and yet I continued, “Adoption is not easy and takes time and money. I have heard there is lots of aggravation and you need a great deal of patience. Years ago many Korean babies came to the US through adoption.”

Tim’s face was frozen like an iceberg and I wondered if I said something terribly wrong. In order to thaw an awkward moment I wanted to change the subject to the lubricant industry trends that are our mutual interest: restricted raw materials from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and environmentally friendly products.

Abruptly he spat out the word “Hedgehog”. In a moment he continued. “The little girl is a hedgehog.”

“Hedgehog.” I repeated exactly what he told me and repeated again, “Hedgehog?”

“We bought a hedgehog at a pet store. It’s a girl and it’s our baby.” Tim concluded his formal announcement.

I had never heard of “hedgehogs” and never saw one. Tim caught my lack of knowledge about hedgehogs and quickly took out the picture of his baby, “hedgehog”.

Ha, ha. Oh my gosh, I told myself, but I was afraid he might hear my voice.

I was totally lost. A hedgehog is a pet. Unbelievable. It cannot be a pet. We left the restaurant and he was so happy about having a pet hedgehog. In contrast, my mind was full of questions about her. What is a hedgehog?

The next day I asked Patti, my secretary, to pull information from Google about “hedgehogs”. Patti printed pictures, some stand up with rabbit’s eyes, black mouth and pink clothes and ribbons in their hair and others just sit absentmindedly.

It is amazing that she wears pink clothes.

My head was spinning with unbelievable issues. I was incapable of thinking and I had very little energy left to talk to myself. It is just my ignorance.   As a pet, people own alligators, snakes, cubs and others. This is not new. It is only new to me.

“Tim, the hedgehog, what is she eating, like table food or pet food?” I asked Tim the following week over coffee. I had been holding my curiosity for a whole week.

“Oh no. She likes hamburgers and fries from White Castle.”

“Umm,” I sighed. I simply did not know what to say for a moment. I was totally lost for words, however, I was glad that at least the hamburgers and fries were not from McDonalds, which is my favorite place to get senior’s coffee, $0.65 per small cup.

“She sleeps between my wife and me, just like our little baby,” Tim continued in an exceptionally good mood.

Again I was quiet and busy looking for words to continue our conversation. Finally before our chat ended, I told him my story. “I did not have any pets in my life. Oh, I take that back. When I was in Korea our family had a watchdog for the family, not a special breed. He ate leftover food from the table and slept in the yard. We never allowed him to sleep inside the house, even during the coldest winter.” I continued, “Since I came to the USA I have four children and it was enough for me to take care of them. Actually five, including the big boy (my husband).”

“We might need a watchdog to prevent intruders when we move to the house on 20 acres of land that is isolated from the city,” I finished.

“Um. No, no. A dog cannot protect you from a thief. An alarm system is much better protection than a dog against a robbery” was Tim’s suggestion.

A couple of weeks later we sat over coffee again and the usual business items were discussed. Because of my lack of knowledge about hedgehogs, I was holding off the conversation about his little baby girl. But Tim could not keep quiet and was eager to update me about her activities.

“I thought the hedgehog felt lonely and in order to give her company we bought five small goldfish for her, but unfortunately, a couple of days later they all died. My wife’s sadness almost made her pass away,” he continued. “Kook-Wha, as you know, usually a frog lives longer than a fish, so I bought four African frogs from a pet store at $1.99 each after the fish died.”

I thought, Tim is taking care of the hedgehog’s loneliness by buying fish or frogs? I could not understand this, even if I died one hundred times and lived again one hundred times.

Tim’s enthusiasm would not let up, “A couple of days later, somehow two frogs did not have energy and stayed at the bottom of the aquarium while two were swimming around the five gallon tank.” I was just listening, listening and listening. My confusion about hedgehogs, fish and frogs was so great that I wondered whether I was living on earth or in outer space. “You know, Kook-Wha,” “Um um” was my expression. “I was terribly afraid that they would all die in the tank and so I picked them up and put them into a jar and threw the jar into the garbage dumpster in our apartment complex.”

I thought that really made sense and I told myself, Excellent job, Tim. “Tim, the hedgehog cried?” Finally there was room in my brain and I asked him with a big smile on my face.

“Kook-Wha, that is not the end. I thought of everything to take care of it. It was last night when I threw the jar with the frogs into the dumpster. I was happy that I would not have any more headaches about frogs.”

“Then?” I interrupted.

“I got a phone call at my office this morning from the veterinarian and my wife.”

“The hedgehog is sick?” I questioned him with surprise and anxiety.

“No, not the hedgehog. She is doing well.”

“Then what?” I could see his frustration and he had a couple more sips of his coffee that was getting cold and he was trying to organize his thoughts.

“I thought my wife did not know I threw the frogs away in the dumpster. The next morning she found the jar in the dumpster and warmed it with a blanket around the jar, because the frogs were from Africa, and then she went to the vet.”

I was frustrated more than Tim by controlling a burst of laughter or a mixture of strange feelings about unbelievable animal lovers’ behavior.

“The vet will charge me $2,500 for each $1.99 frog.”

“Tim, maybe just $25.00. It cannot be $2,500.00,” I comforted him.

Tim’s anger was at the breaking point, and I thought he might break the table, but he kept himself well under control. Tim did not mention the vet’s diagnosis or what the doctor told his wife. The vet running around the clinic table working on the frogs was beyond my imagination.

Tim has a very nice Harley Davidson motorcycle and whenever he has time, he rides his bike to Alaska or Tennessee from Indiana. That is one of his hobbies. When he and his wife go on summer vacation riding on the bike with the hedgehog, naturally they will put her in a small basket and have a wonderful ride.

“Kook-Wha, we will take the hedgehog when we go on vacation.”

“Sure.” No doubt, I agreed.

“My wife put her in a chest by wrapping her in a blanket.” My mouth dropped open waiting for his next sentence.

One week after the fish and African frogs were gone without becoming friends with the hedgehog, Tim bought two lobsters, blue and red, in order to eliminate the hedgehog’s loneliness. Tim thought one lobster was not enough, that two would be better. I admired Tim’s tenacity in finding company for his little baby girl.

Last night an e-mail came from Tim. Before I read it, my first instinct was, Oh, no. The lobsters died too? But, actually he made a website of his baby, “hedgehog”. His baby was wearing a pink dress. With perfect round blue eyes, she was looking at me without any fear or curiosity and with extreme happiness. I am looking at her with the exact same feelings, without fear or curiosity.

What Happened to Abram’s Money?

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What did happen to Abram’s money? He never made it to Switzerland so he couldn’t have taken the money out or sent it to America. I used to wonder, when I was a child, and my Mom entertained us each night before bed by telling us stories about her two trips to Europe and how hard it was trying to bring Abram to America, what happened to the money?

As I got older I understood that, in those days, once you put money in a Swiss bank account, you only needed to know the account number to take your money out. No account ever had a name attached to it. People put their money in Switzerland’s banks because their laws allowed depositors to keep their accounts secret and anonymous.

Then I remembered Maximillian, Abram’s younger brother. He had come to America twice with Abram, in 1919 and 1929. From Mom’s stories the two seemed to always be together. According to the letters I read, they were both together in Beirut, Lebanon in the early part of 1941. Abram was thinking about money at that time because he wrote to my grandparents that he was almost without funds and so he couldn’t stay much longer.

Did Abram give Maximillian the account numbers then? Just in case something bad should happen to him?

I talked to my Mom, who’s 101, and asked her why Maximillian didn’t go with Abram when he started out for Switzerland? It seemed strange that the two of them would separate at that point.  She didn’t know. But the two did separate with Abram traveling to Switzerland and Maximillian going to Romania.

She remembered that at some point, when Maximillian was in Romania, he was captured by the Nazis and put in a German concentration camp. She didn’t know which one. He escaped once. But then he was caught and imprisoned again.  At the end of World War II the Russians liberated the concentration camp. He was out for a while. Then the Russians arrested him and put him in one of their camps. Some time later, he tried to escape and this time he was successful.

Maximillian contacted the Red Cross. They were able to connect him with my grandparents. He told them that he was out, but he needed money desperately. I remember that for years my parents and grandparents talking about what they were sending to Maximillian to sell. At one point he wanted material to make men’s suits so he could sew and sell them. My grandparents wanted to send him ready-made suits. It would have been easier for them. But, no, he insisted they send him the material instead. Why? We never found out.

Another time, they thought he could make more money, and it would be cheaper for them to mail, if they sent him watches. He was very angry. Apparently, the Russians or the Germans, I’m not clear which, beat him. They thought the watches contained some type of device to make a bomb.

Then there was the period when they would send him jeans. American Levi’s were a big hit in Europe after the war. He could sell them easily on the street.

Somehow, during this time, he made his way from Bucharest, Romania to Dusseldorf, Germany. I don’t know how he did it. I just googled his journey. It’s 1,221 miles, the distance from San Francisco, California to Denver, Colorado.  He had to travel through Hungary, Austria and halfway across Germany to reach Dusseldorf.

One time, when he was in Germany, in1955, Grandma sent him a copy of A Star of Hope, the poetry book Papa had written and dedicated to her for their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Maximillian wrote back. He was furious. Apparently the German censors, or someone in authority, thought it was some secret code and he was in serious trouble for a while.

Time went on. More packages were sent to Europe with things to sell. Then, at some point, Maximillian wrote to my grandparents and parents. He thanked them all for their help and let them know that they no longer needed to send him things to sell. He was fine. Life was good. He was working in a bank in Dusseldorf, Germany.

My parents and grandparents always believed, after they got that letter, that he had found a way to access Abram’s money. They were so close. He was his younger brother. It seemed only logical that Abram had told him the numbers of his Swiss bank account. We always believed that that was the money he lived on. The job in the German bank was helpful but the salary wouldn’t have been enough for the life he was living.

“Well, time marches on,” as my mother says.  My parents and grandparents wrote and Maximillian wrote back. Many years passed. Grandma and Papa were no longer here. One day my Mom got a letter from Dusseldorf, Germany, from Fanny. Who was Fanny? She wrote to my Mom that she and Maximillian had married shortly after the war. Maximillian had just died. She wanted his family to know.

My parents were stunned. Maximillian had never mentioned a wife. They had no idea. To this day my Mom says, “Why? Why didn’t he tell us?” They would have been so happy to know he had somebody.

Mom and Fanny corresponded. It was complicated. My Mom would write a letter. Fanny would get it. She didn’t speak English. So she would take several buses to a friend’s house who did. The friend would translate Mom’s letter for her. Fanny would write an answer. The friend would then translate it into English and Fanny would mail the letter to Mom.

This would happen once a month for many years. Then one day Fannie wrote that she was very old. All the traveling by bus and transferring from one bus to another to get to her friend’s house so the letters could be translated was too much for her. She couldn’t do it any more. My Mom heard nothing more for a while. Then Fannie’s friend wrote that Fannie too had died.

In the end, Abram’s money did a lot of good. Knowing how generous he had always been in life with his family, I think he would have been happy with what his money accomplished after he was no longer here: It helped Maximillian and Fanny have a nice life and allowed Fannie to live comfortably all the years after Maximillian died.

Why Go to Switzerland?

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Just as suspense keeps a story going and your audience interested, there comes a point when you have to tell them what happened. You have to answer the questions you’ve implied or asked directly earlier in the piece.

Why did Abram insist on stopping off in Switzerland first and then coming to America second? The world was at war. He was in Beirut, Lebanon. Switzerland was a long way away. The Nazis controlled many of the countries he would have to pass through and he was a Jew. All good reasons, I would think, to come to America immediately now that he had the Visa and could do it. There was nothing more to wait for.

The excuse he gave my parents and grandparents doesn’t make sense. He needed to stop off in Switzerland first because he had some medical problems. After the Swiss doctors helped him, then he would come.

The world was too dangerous for him to make a stop like that for health reasons. The chances of him being killed were too high. There were plenty of doctors in America he could see after he arrived. No, I believe he had another, much more important reason for going to Switzerland first and then coming to America.

Abram had been a very successful businessman. He grew up in Bucharest, Romania. Later, after he became head of an Italian-American shipping line, the King of Italy knighted him. He was important and wealthy. He was also very generous with his family. He took care of his mother for many years, supporting her in Bucharest and later moving her to live with him in Constantinople (now Istanbul).

Abram was also very generous with his oldest sister, Clara, my grandmother.  World War I ended on November 11, 1918. Abram came to San Francisco sometime in 1919. He invited Grandma, Papa, my Mom and Maximillian, his younger brother who was traveling with him, to travel around Europe for a year, visiting family and seeing the sights.

Everyone was thrilled at the opportunity. From the stories my Mom tells, they had an absolutely marvelous time! They started by taking the ferry from San Francisco, across the Bay to Oakland, where they caught the train to New York City. From there, they sailed on the RMS Aquitania, one of the most luxurious ocean liners of the time.

Mom was six and Maximillian sixteen, not exactly a child but not all grown up either. He used to take her to the park, the circus and out for ice cream while the adults went to shows like the Folies Bergère or out for drinks.

They traveled to France, Switzerland, Rumania and Turkey. From my Mom’s stories, Paris was one of the highlights of the trip: the Louvre, the shops, the people, and the atmosphere. I grew up always wanting to go to Paris, walk down the Champs-Élysées and see if it was as wonderful as she said. It is!

At some point they took the Orient Express to Constantinople. The trip took 80 hours—three days, eight hours. They had a sleeping car and ate in the dining room. Mom talked about how exciting and wonderful everything was!

They stayed a while in Constantinople visiting family. Mom became fast friends with her cousin, Eva, who was about the same age. I’ve seen pictures of them standing together, dressed the same—two cute six year olds with smiles from ear to ear.

Later they went to Romania. One night there was a birthday party at Papa’s mother’s house, with lots of singing and dancing. The highlight of the evening was Papa dancing a Viennese waltz with his mother on her 80th birthday. Many people had tears in their eyes.

Then, in 1929, just before the Stock Market Crash, Abram came again to San Francisco to visit. He also brought Maximillian. Mom was now sixteen and Maximillian twenty-six. Soon they and Grandma and Papa were off for another year in Europe, traveling and visiting family.

Mom had just graduated early from Lowell High School so she could make the trip. When she came back a year later, she started college at the University of California in Berkeley.

When I think about this, it seems clear that Abram was a very generous man, who was also well off, and was happy to share his good fortune with his family. I also think, like many other well off Europeans of that time, he put his money in Swiss banks. It would be safe and secure and the Nazis couldn’t touch it.

When my Dad got Abram the American Visa in 1941, and let him know that the family in America would take care of him, Abram must have thought, I’ve got money in Switzerland. There’s a war going on. Hitler may win. I may never be able to return to Europe. I need to take it with me.

There were no computers in those days. Abram couldn’t just go online and transfer his money from one bank or country to another. He must have found it hard at that point in his life to leave all his wealth behind and be dependent on his America family for the rest of his life. Why not try to bring it with him?

Considering all the odds against him, I don’t know how he thought he could do it. He did know a lot of people and maybe he thought some of them might help him. He spoke a number of languages and he might have thought that would help too.

Abram’s always sounded like a very optimistic person; someone who believed they could succeed against all odds. It must have been awful for him to come so close, Trieste, less than a day’s travel from Geneva, only to be captured. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for him when the Nazis took him off the train and to the Savoia Hotel, where he’d lived for so many years. Did he think he could make some kind of arrangement with them until the very end, or, once they took him off the train, did he know it was over?

If my interpretation is correct, what happened to the money? Abram was murdered in his hotel room at The Savoia Hotel in Trieste, Italy sometime in late 1941. He never made it to Switzerland. So he was never able to send his money to America.

For that answer, you’ll have to come back next month.

Yes, you can publish a book

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My thoughts on self-publishing

 

What is stopping you from publishing your book?  You are.

I have self-published two books so far, and I am thrilled about it.  With the introduction of eReaders, writers have complete freedom in their craft.  You have the ability to post anything online through a blog and various social media, and now you have the socially-accepted ability to publish a book.  But that was not always the case.

As recent as 10 years ago, the only way to buy a book was as a printed copy in a brick-and-mortar bookstore.  The only way to get your book into those stores was to sign a contract with one of the traditional publishing houses headquartered in New York.  These companies controlled physical book distribution, and they didn’t make the process of acceptance easy.  Even with well-crafted query letters and strong sample chapters, you still needed a smidgeon of luck that your manuscript found its way to the right editor or agent to believe in you.  If you made it through that professional vetting process, then you had the validation of being a “real” writer.

If your work wasn’t good enough to be accepted by the industry, then the only way to get your story to readers was to fake professionalism.  You had to print it on your own, with the stigma of “vanity press” trailing your byline.  I believe that was a phrase created by publishing houses.  If you had to print and peddle your wares yourself, then you weren’t a professional writer.  This legitimized publishing houses and enhanced their aura of attraction.  Without any sense of quality control or standards, what was there to keep the sludge out?  Such a book was an ego trip, and the only sales would come from family and friends.

On a base level, I understand that perception, especially after my experience at a 1998 independent publishing convention in New York City.  Unknown authors sat at tables just as if they were at a real book signing, so I figured there must have been some judging or invitation to be there.  I came across a hardback book with a colorful cover protected by a clear plastic slipcover.  It was a subject I was interested in writing, so I bought it.  Anyone who looked good must be good.  However, after reading the book, I learned that if you flip to a random page, any page, you will come across a grammatical error, a spelling mistake or a bombing of the F-word.  I’m serious.

No wonder people didn’t trust vanity press authors.  How could you tell a skilled writer from a sloppy ego trip?  Anyone can slap pieces of paper between a sturdy cover; professional-looking photography on the outside doesn’t guarantee that editing and grammatical care was taken on the inside.  I fell for that with the college book.  For all I know, those writers paid to rent table space, so anyone with money could have been there.  Reputable publishers guaranteed those services and more, so you took your chances with independents.

I didn’t have extra cash to toss around just to be labeled a phony.  If I wanted legitimacy as a writer, I would have to play the publishing lottery.

Now welcome to the brave new world of indie publishing.

“Vanity press” fades into obscurity as “self-publishing” gains legitimacy through e-pioneers like vampire series author Amanda Hocking , fantasy writer H.P. Mallory  and mystery-thriller author J.A. Konrath . Self-publishing is now a viable, accepted method of getting books to readers, especially with the popularity of eReaders.

Self-publishing gives anyone the opportunity to be a Published Author.  Young or old, newbie or established, there are no arbitrary opinions guidelines to keep otherwise-successful writers out of the market.  There are no external factors in this enterprise.  No one is sandwiched into a particular subject matter because new genres are created all the time.  Established genres are combined.  There is an outlet for niche topics directed at specialized audiences.  Story length is not limited to traditional page counts. These fringe elements, un-tested and un-proven as even mildly popular, are things traditional publishers would never touch. But you can.

Anyone can be a fantastic storyteller.

Now we can legitimize ourselves.  All writers have egos.

With such ease, there is still that initial concern: how to navigate through the slush to ferret out the gems.  Well, how do you do it now?  When you walk into a bookstore, what do you gravitate towards?  Is it a particular genre, the bestsellers, the sale items or the staff picks?  What makes you pick up a book: cover art, the subject material, the title or reviews and recommendations?  Online browsing is no different.  The book’s “back cover” summary is listed above the reviews.  Just like flipping through pages in a store, many writers offer the reader a sample to download and preview.  Ultimately, you don’t know how good a book is until you read it, just like any traditionally published book.  What is “good” and “bad” is subjective, but now you have more options, authors and books to discover.  It is more likely you’ll find a story worth reading, one you’re interested in.  This is a good thing.  It’s a great thing!

Given that, does a publishing house matter?  Nope.  Readers do not need publishers for distribution because eBooks are available electronically.  I’ve always bought books based on my interest, not the publisher.  Quick, without looking it up online, who publishes Stephen King?  Dean Koontz?  Danielle Steel?  Nora Roberts?  I find that people are brand-loyal with dishwashers, coffee, laundry detergent, cereal and soda pop, but not books.  Think about movies.  Have you ever heard anyone say, “Oh, I won’t see that movie because it’s not produced by 20th Century Fox.” ?  In fact, it’s an honor to have your film selected for the Cannes International Film Festival.  Is that called “vanity filmmaking”?  Many unknown filmmakers are introduced there because artistic quality (good storytelling) is the key there, not the big-name directors (best-selling authors) financed by big-name production studios (publishing houses).

Some writers need that perceived validation.  Some may not want to be involved in the details of work outside of the actual writing.  That’s personal preference.  I’m not one of those people.  I prefer the creative freedom.

Think about it.  You create the cover art you want.  You choose your editor, or make the decision not to use one.  There are no printing costs outside of any print on demand (POD) because publishing is electronic.  You set the price, and you can change that any time and as often as you wish.  At this time, royalties are higher than with a traditional publisher so you earn more money.  You can upload a story of any genre or any length because today’s readers accept both.  You publish on your schedule.  You can upload new versions at any time, thus customizing or updating content.  All it costs you is your time.

Note the theme above?  It’s control.

For all those reasons, I chose to self-publish.  Why not?  As of this post, I have two books available on Amazon.  At short stories that are 21 pages each, no publishing house would waste the ink and dead trees.  I don’t blame them, and I don’t fault them, so I took the power and launched them myself.

Remember that ego thing I mentioned earlier?

Does self-publishing my work–the lack of a traditional publisher– make me less of a writer?  Does having a book in print make me more of one?  I don’t think so, but it’s a fun thing to do.

So far, my self-publishing journey has been a positive one.  I hope you’ll follow me along this adventure because this is not the end.  I’ll continue to share my experiences.  Feel free to share yours in the comments below.

Will I be successful, whatever the definition of “success” is?  Would you be?  How will you ever know if you don’t try?

Nothing is stopping you but you.