Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth
to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!
This Episode: Writing as an Obsession... Joyful, Agonizing, Necessary...!
For those who love the act and the art of jotting words on paper, in journals or punching keys to turn x's and y's into thoughts on a computer screen, writing is a compulsion, at times joyful, at others agonizing! But often, perhaps more accurately always, a kind of dominating obsession.
When I was a callow youth suffering through a Jesuit high school education, an English teacher told a friend of mind that he might consider writing as a career, at least an avocation. He looked at me and said, "Writing is something you should never do!"
Well, what the hell could I do with that condemnation, that bit of false, insulting and presumed lack of skill or talent?! I had always loved to write, stories, bits of poetry, nonsense to give life to my margin drawings and amateurish cartoons. I simply did not care to share that passion with my classmates and contemporaries, for twin fears of embarassment and failing to fit in with the popular crowd. Or worse -- a high school curse -- being labeled "creative," non-athletic and bookish!
My father, a career government employee, a special agent in the FBI, insisted that if I had any semblance of a brain in my head, I'd pursue a career in government or public service, a job that guaranteed a pension at the end of too many years of tedium. Naturally, I ignored that sage advice. I became a writer, a journalist, eventually a self-employed free-lance editor and co-publisher at various times... and most of the time, a writer! And though I've loved most every moment of it, my "brilliant career choice" did not produce financial security, or that pension plan my father tried so valiantly to place in my thoughts as I plodded into the future. (My mother wanted a doctor in the family! Both parents were disappointed!)
I joined the military out of high school, being a conflicted, angry, rebellious and undecided youth. I did some writing during that period, including a bit of re-write and editing copy, even some on-air time, for the Armed Forces Radio Service. Four years later, I was accepted into a university and pursued another four-year stint in that institution's College of Journalism.
Never one to forge a master plan with intellectual mettle stirred into the crucible, after graduation, having achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree, I hit the road.
I landed first in Colorado where I worked for a regional newspaper. The publisher also owned a Legion Post newspaper. I became editor and chief reporter and writer for both. I had a brief flirtation with a newspaper in the south-central mountains of Colorado, before accepting a job with a daily in Cheyenne, Wyoming. While in that fine city, I also did some radio and television newscasting, a brief stint as a UPI stringer, all of it feeding my passion, and adding the great benefit of learning my chosen craft well, gaining experience.
Further west, in Seattle, Washington, I worked as a newscaster for both a radio and a television station, then traveled south before returning to my Milwaukee base, where I became editor and chief writer for the community's Model Cities' newspaper, prior to joining a public relations firm. As a PR counsel, I wrote press releases that were published nearly verbatim -- false modesty aside -- in several major US newspapers, and in major trade magazines as well.
It's in the blood, I suppose... writing. In the passage of time, well, to be accurate, in the mid- 1970s, fortunes and employment opportunities being what they were and are, I launched a career as a self-employed, free-lance writer, and never looked backward, never returned to "un-self-employment." (Well, maybe once, in the mid-90s!... for approximately 5 months!)
In the mid-1990s, on the edge of "robust middle age," and not quite on the threshold of "GeezerHood," my father -- with whom I had always (not) enjoyed a contentious relationship, was beset by two forms of cancer -- one of which eventually claimed his life -- his condition further challenged by worsening dementia. It fell to my older sister and me, with the indispensable help of my wife, SweetHeart, to become my father's principal caregivers. His condition, his hospice care, lasted for nearly two full years. Following his death, I felt compelled to write about the experience.
It started, at least in my mind, as a probable short story, but soon morphed into a full-length book, a "relationships story fused with a memoir" -- And Good Night to All the Beautiful Young Women... My book was read and edited by professional, published authors and editors who encouraged me to do my best to see it published. I sent a great many query letters to literary agents, two of whom contacted me, interested in representation. The first ultimately backed away, being more focused on handling "medical memoir." The second was truly interested in the story, had promised we'd have a professional relationship, but sadly died before an author-agent representation could be forged.
The world of publishing being what it is today, an opinion shared by many fellow writers, both published and struggling, memoirs are difficult at best to attract an agent, and much of what we read and see on bookshelves and in book shops by recognized authors, are... well, so many of us wonder how in the hell they ever landed a publisher. Sour grapes and envy, perhaps, but true in any case!
Eventually, I opted for self-publishing at the urging of family, friends, colleagues and critics. I've had the good fortune to be favorably reviewed by many readers imbued with intelligence, professionalism and skill, including other writers, published authors and even a professional, career-long geriatrics caregiver. It has been, to use a tired phrase, a most gratifying "journey
of discovery." Readers I'd never met praised And Good Night... for its humor -- my father was a gifted comedian, humorist and storyteller -- its sensitivity and its revelations of elder caregiving methodology and coping mechanisms.
I decided to write his piece of shameless self-promotion as a means of giving and perhaps achieving some measure of empathy with others similarly bitten by the same bug, those of us who love to write, pursued almost ceaselessly by words and ideas demanding to be given voice. Whether we scribble for our own amusement or belong to writers' groups and clubs, or hope someday to land a contract, we are, I think, a kindred group of the hopelessly obsessed.
I now have three books in print, the aforementioned And Good Night..., Memoirs of a Geezer and An Awful, Beautiful Day... Or, Me and My Chicken Pox!, the latter a sibling-produced and illustrated children's book.
And Good Night... is available via amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, booksamillion.com and Powells.com. The other two published books are also available through amazon.com. Maybe we could share!! You buy my book, and if you're in print, I'll buy yours. We'll likely never get rich from our passion, but the joy is in the creation of fine literature, the creative process itself! Right?? Hell yes, right!!
When I was a callow youth suffering through a Jesuit high school education, an English teacher told a friend of mind that he might consider writing as a career, at least an avocation. He looked at me and said, "Writing is something you should never do!"
Well, what the hell could I do with that condemnation, that bit of false, insulting and presumed lack of skill or talent?! I had always loved to write, stories, bits of poetry, nonsense to give life to my margin drawings and amateurish cartoons. I simply did not care to share that passion with my classmates and contemporaries, for twin fears of embarassment and failing to fit in with the popular crowd. Or worse -- a high school curse -- being labeled "creative," non-athletic and bookish!
My father, a career government employee, a special agent in the FBI, insisted that if I had any semblance of a brain in my head, I'd pursue a career in government or public service, a job that guaranteed a pension at the end of too many years of tedium. Naturally, I ignored that sage advice. I became a writer, a journalist, eventually a self-employed free-lance editor and co-publisher at various times... and most of the time, a writer! And though I've loved most every moment of it, my "brilliant career choice" did not produce financial security, or that pension plan my father tried so valiantly to place in my thoughts as I plodded into the future. (My mother wanted a doctor in the family! Both parents were disappointed!)
I joined the military out of high school, being a conflicted, angry, rebellious and undecided youth. I did some writing during that period, including a bit of re-write and editing copy, even some on-air time, for the Armed Forces Radio Service. Four years later, I was accepted into a university and pursued another four-year stint in that institution's College of Journalism.
Never one to forge a master plan with intellectual mettle stirred into the crucible, after graduation, having achieved a Bachelor of Arts degree, I hit the road.
I landed first in Colorado where I worked for a regional newspaper. The publisher also owned a Legion Post newspaper. I became editor and chief reporter and writer for both. I had a brief flirtation with a newspaper in the south-central mountains of Colorado, before accepting a job with a daily in Cheyenne, Wyoming. While in that fine city, I also did some radio and television newscasting, a brief stint as a UPI stringer, all of it feeding my passion, and adding the great benefit of learning my chosen craft well, gaining experience.
Further west, in Seattle, Washington, I worked as a newscaster for both a radio and a television station, then traveled south before returning to my Milwaukee base, where I became editor and chief writer for the community's Model Cities' newspaper, prior to joining a public relations firm. As a PR counsel, I wrote press releases that were published nearly verbatim -- false modesty aside -- in several major US newspapers, and in major trade magazines as well.
It's in the blood, I suppose... writing. In the passage of time, well, to be accurate, in the mid- 1970s, fortunes and employment opportunities being what they were and are, I launched a career as a self-employed, free-lance writer, and never looked backward, never returned to "un-self-employment." (Well, maybe once, in the mid-90s!... for approximately 5 months!)
In the mid-1990s, on the edge of "robust middle age," and not quite on the threshold of "GeezerHood," my father -- with whom I had always (not) enjoyed a contentious relationship, was beset by two forms of cancer -- one of which eventually claimed his life -- his condition further challenged by worsening dementia. It fell to my older sister and me, with the indispensable help of my wife, SweetHeart, to become my father's principal caregivers. His condition, his hospice care, lasted for nearly two full years. Following his death, I felt compelled to write about the experience.
The world of publishing being what it is today, an opinion shared by many fellow writers, both published and struggling, memoirs are difficult at best to attract an agent, and much of what we read and see on bookshelves and in book shops by recognized authors, are... well, so many of us wonder how in the hell they ever landed a publisher. Sour grapes and envy, perhaps, but true in any case!
Eventually, I opted for self-publishing at the urging of family, friends, colleagues and critics. I've had the good fortune to be favorably reviewed by many readers imbued with intelligence, professionalism and skill, including other writers, published authors and even a professional, career-long geriatrics caregiver. It has been, to use a tired phrase, a most gratifying "journey
 |
| A brilliant young chap lounging in Jamaica, I'm reliably told, perusing a superb volume. He wrote a 5-Star Review! |
I decided to write his piece of shameless self-promotion as a means of giving and perhaps achieving some measure of empathy with others similarly bitten by the same bug, those of us who love to write, pursued almost ceaselessly by words and ideas demanding to be given voice. Whether we scribble for our own amusement or belong to writers' groups and clubs, or hope someday to land a contract, we are, I think, a kindred group of the hopelessly obsessed.
I now have three books in print, the aforementioned And Good Night..., Memoirs of a Geezer and An Awful, Beautiful Day... Or, Me and My Chicken Pox!, the latter a sibling-produced and illustrated children's book.
And Good Night... is available via amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, booksamillion.com and Powells.com. The other two published books are also available through amazon.com. Maybe we could share!! You buy my book, and if you're in print, I'll buy yours. We'll likely never get rich from our passion, but the joy is in the creation of fine literature, the creative process itself! Right?? Hell yes, right!!
Humbly Submitted 06-05-19 -- Joel K.
