So I found this last week or so while going through my things, trying to figure out what I want to save and what I'm OK with never seeing again. I thought, why not save this for a GF? And then I posted last night's column, and I realized tonight would be the perfect time for this.
If you can't tell what that is in the picture, it's a photocopied bundle of pages from a Writer's Market book. Once upon a time, around when Caesar crossed the Rubicon, I took a creative writing course in high school. I'm fairly certain it was the first year it had been offered, and it was supposed to be for seniors, but I took it as a sophomore.
Mr. Langner was the teacher, and he must have recognized something in me because I'm pretty sure he didn't take any of his other students aside like he did me. That bundle of pages above? He put that in my hand and told me that there are people in the world WHO ACTUALLY MAKE MONEY FROM WRITING. It was a real eye-opener for me. He even knew what I wanted to write, so he copied the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror section of the Writer's Market. The keys to the kingdom.
If you weren't writing back then, the Writer's Market was an annual book published by Writer's Digest. It contained places to send your work to. That was our version of the internet back then. So I pored over those pages and started submitting stories immediately.
Long story short, if you're looking for someone to blame for me, you might want to think about Mr. Langner. I probably would have found out eventually, but because of him I got a very early start and got the hope appropriately beaten out of me earlier in life and got me very familiar with rejection from the beginning.
More things a beginning writer needs to know. But that's all for tonight. Goodnight, fuckers, and good luck.
PS: If you want to know what is in those boxes, they are packed to the brim with reject letters. There are three boxes there, and that's not even all of the rejects I've gotten. I've gotten rejected by some of the best. One day I might go through those and look for the ones with personal notes. For nostalgia.
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