Once a Writer, Always a Writer

On a whim this summer, furloughed from work and staying safe at home during the pandemic, I submitted a story to a literary journal. The First Line invites writers to play with an interesting prompt – the first line of the story. All of the stories in the issue begin the same, and it’s up to the author to craft the rest. I jumped at the chance to write something off the top of my head. I could dive into my imagination and personal experience and create. It was exciting! This would be my story, my voice, my vision. I wouldn’t need to check on Intellectual Property restrictions from my entertainment conglomerate. There would be no executive to review and approve my work, rewrite with their version, or give me notes in several rounds before submission. I was on my own, alone but not lonely, in that way that writers like Margaret Atwood and Stephen King describe. Just me, my laptop, my characters, and the first line. To be alone, I had to hide from my children and avoid making dinner for the family for a couple of days but, buoyed by the company of my dogs and cats, I handled these hardships.

The idea reminded me of Creative Writing modules from middle school. Specifically, I recall one assignment called “show don’t tell,” in which we practiced using descriptions to bring images to life in the reader’s mind. We were assigned to write a “show don’t tell” paragraph with the prompt, “The pizza was delicious.” Having a penchant for adjectives, I thoroughly enjoyed the enticing assignment. I have a vague memory of the class reading some of the passages aloud. Being a theatre kid, I quickly volunteered to read mine – with feeling. Something about stringy cheese clinging to the roof of my mouth, burning it, yet not reducing the joy of the experience. I’m sure it was overblown and dramatic. Certainly, the reading was! My story was one of a few that were published in the school paper as an example of what the sixth grade was doing.

That wasn’t the last time my name appeared in print. In eighth grade, I was the Features editor for the middle school paper, so my byline appeared monthly. The ability to share my fiction remained elusive, though. I had a drawer full of stories in notebooks, and as soon as my family got an Apple IIe, I filled floppy after floppy (disks) with unrealized YA novels. The stories I turned in for assignments in middle school and high school were well received by a few of my teachers and once, memorably ripped to shreds by another. (I came to question that teacher’s intellectual capacity over the course of that year, but clearly, it still stings.) In college and as a young adult, I submitted a few stories to literary journals, collecting rejection letters as bravely as possible. I had a harder time dismissing the intellectual capacity of those editors. Still, I persisted and was pleased to receive an invitation to publish in Mosaic, the arts magazine at my university.

A few decades and a handful of rejection letters later, deep in the lockdown of 2020, I received an email from the editor of The First Line. He asked to publish my story. A little back and forth with the editor was good: a nip here, a tuck there, a keen eye to catch an error, a discussion about a certain point for clarity, choosing a title. Productive dialogue between writer and editor, no submission required. I agreed that they could include my story in this edition and signed a contract. A copy of the book arrived this weekend, with a check for the small stipend. I’ve been writing for my entertainment conglomerate for decades, but today I am a paid writer. Something about finally crossing that “first line” into the literary world…not tied to my university… the acknowledgment by strangers who read a lot of stories and who don’t know me personally…this feels like a milestone. A validation of a craft I’ve practiced all my life. I don’t know the circulation of this magazine and I don’t care. I got one across the line.

“The one thing you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”

– Neil Gaiman

The First Line. Vol. 22, Issue 3. Get your copy in print or PDF at: http://www.thefirstline.com/index.htm