THE GOOD DREAM OF PUBLISHING - Why not you?

"What I noticed this morning, reading through the notes on the list, was the "long-odds" emphasis--the statistics that illustrate how difficult it is to break into the publishing game and keep going. Those kinds of articles, warnings, etc, used to give me the willies when I was an aspiring writer. I heard them everywhere--from my father, who wanted me to be "sensible" and find some way to support myself, from the aging, die-hard cook at the bowling alley where I worked for six months, who was sure I was going to get my heart broken, wanting something so huge, so different, Not For People Like Us.

So, for anyone out there who might be getting the willies, who hears too much of the "long odds" talk from people in his or her life already, I want to say:
Writing and publishing books is a great life, and it's worth pursuing. For all that publishing makes me crazy some days and the way the money flows is not for the faint of heart, it's a great life. Writing is excellent, and so is seeing the work in the world, doing whatever it is going to do.

It is lovely to write for the love of it, and of course you should love the work, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to publish, too. I burned to publish. I had no desire whatsoever to write in my garrett all alone. I burned--still do--to communicate ideas, thoughts, dreams, hopes to others. Communication is not completed until there is someone on the listening end. I was determined to figure out where I should be writing, and just kept trying venues: literary short stories, articles, novels, science fiction, then finally romance, which fit my voice and passions like Cinderella's glass slipper. "