One evening last week I gave a “library talk” at the Oley Community Library for the Greater Lehigh Valley Writer’s Group. The talk is called, “Get Writing, Get Published” and members of the group have been giving it each year to help new writers and to publicize the upcoming conference.
I gathered some of my published pieces, including the first article I had published back in 1992. It was a short piece in “Cats” magazine, entitled “Motley’s Choice”, about the cat I adopted after my fiancé died in 1989.
Although I’d had my first rejection at age 12, that was the year I decided to start getting serious about my writing, as in: submitting the darn stuff. Three years later I had a check for $40 for that piece. And, no, I don’t have that check. I was a single mom and the check was quickly cashed and the money put to good use.
I wrote sporadically for the local monthly paper, The Easton Irregular, and for the local daily newspaper, The Express-Times. During the 1990s I was featured often in the Express-Times’ opinion page in the “Her View” column. Later I freelanced for them, writing articles and reviews. The daily paper even serialized one of my short stories, “Forest Primeval”.
I was on my way to fame and fortune…
Not.
The brass ring of a book contract kept eluding me. But other life-changes were happening to me.
My day job—the one that supported my writing and book-buying addiction—became more intense.
I had some health issues.
I discovered the love of my life, late in life. And then I married him.
And during all of that I kept writing. Short stories, essays, blogs, novels.
I blogged on www.mitzimusings.blogspot.com
I submitted the short stories and got rejections.
The local newspapers were no longer using freelancers, so my journalism days were numbered.
That was when I decided to work on novels.
So far I’ve written several–and rewritten them.
Agents and editors have asked for partials and have turned them down, nicely saying that they didn’t have a “spot” for them.
But I keep writing–in multiple genres and several lengths. I keep submitting.
I’ve recently had a short story published in an indie anthology: Tales from the Mist.
I’m not giving up.
I cannot NOT write.
Mitzi Flyte 