Without digging too deep, you can probably guess why I started this blog. Yep, it's fairly personal for me as a writer, illustrator, and self-published author. It would make more sense to have some context, so here's my story.
Early on in my reading career, I had a fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Powers. One of my favorite memories of that time is in her classroom, as she would read to us from the Scholastic book choice of the month. The first I remember was a story called The Real Me, by Betty Miles. It's about a very independent girl who wants a paper route, but her family tells her that it's not for young ladies. She rebels. It's a very heartfelt story and the way Mrs. Powers read it really pulled me in. Okay, so I get the dichotomy of me as a flag football-playing suburban Chicago kid in touch with my inner feminist. I get it, it's funny. I was a sensitive soul. Still am, when the weather and music are right.
That was the beginning of me being in love with books and reading. I tore into the Hardy Boys and all things Roald Dahl. I even snuck a Dr. Suess when no one was looking, because I was fascinated with his drawings of weird plants and odd creatures. I always wondered what it was like, creating these worlds and characters that people in the real universe get attached to.
In sixth grade, another teacher, Mrs. Harris, gave us the assignment of writing a short story. I dove right in - this was no page of multiplication problems, this was homework I could get my arms around. I stayed up late a couple nights, tweaking and perfecting my story of a kid who falls through a trapdoor into another world. It felt so good writing it that it was hard to keep it to the thousand words Mrs. Harris limited us to. It was a creative accomplishment for me outside of the class assignment, it was a fun exercise for my brain. I had never written like that before.
What a surprise, then, when Mrs. Harris asked me to read my story in front of the class. Like most sixth graders, I wasn't a practiced public speaker. Standing in front of the class, I felt like I had to use the bathroom. Long-car-trip-with-no-rest-stop kind of feeling. I held my bladder and bowels (yup, that too) and read my story for everyone to hear. I had included some bits because I thought were mildly funny to me, but I was shocked when Mrs. Harris, at the back of the room, laughed out loud at each one. It even affected the bored kids in class and they got into it, too. My bladder almost let go when Bobbi, the object of my unrequieted love at the time told me it was really funny.
Still, the joke was on everyone, because I hadn't even tried very hard. It didn't feel like work, what I did those few nights. It just felt like it slid out of my brain, down my skinny arm, through my hand, and mixed with the ink in my North Central Airlines ballpoint to end up on notebook paper in my room. Could I really take credit for something that just happened? Well, I was 12, so of course I did.
Over the years I worked very hard to change my skinny, bespectacled geek writer's image for something cooler, that smoked and drank and only read Rolling Stone. I lost a lot of time in trying to be something I wasn't only to find out that what I was was cooler than what I had been trying to be. Say that five times fast.
Skip ahead to a time where I'm contemplating my first illustrated book. The first thing I did was consult a lot of magazines and books about the publishing world. I studied the Writer's Market books and tried to see where I fit in, how I could find a way to get someone to publish my work. The sage advice I found everywhere was not to start a project until you've found a publisher or someone to back you. In other words, sell your idea first and then get to the meat of it. I had similar advice from people in the entertainment industry. I was having meetings at Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon and the gospel I brought home very time was, "Pitch the idea first! Don't waste your time getting too deep in your work, because it might get rejected." At the time, it sounded very wise and, becaue these people were high up in the Animation and television industry, I swallowed every word without checking the label. I also thought about the story I had just written, Road Trip with Rabbit and Squash, and thought, What a waste of time.
A few more years pranced by and one day I found myself skimming the pages in my sketchbook where I had fleshed out some character ideas. Hey, this is pretty good, I thought. What happened to this story? I booted up my mac and searched my hard drive for the story. Sure enough, there it lay, as fresh as the day it slid down my arm and onto my keyboard. I started thinking about all the reasons I didn't do anything with it and I had an epiphany. What the hell difference does it make if no one ever publishes this thing? Would it be any less enjoyable for me? The answer, thankfully, was a resounding NO and that very day I got back to work on what would be my first published work. Indendently published, yes, but also independently created. Of course it's true what they say that no man is an island and I couldn't have finished the book without help, encouragement, and valuable copy editing from others. What made it truly independent is that the ideas were my own and I executed them for better or worse under my own sails. Besides, it was just a helluva lot of fun.
So there you have it. That's the spirit of Independent Writer and that's what I want to share with my readers here. I have to say there is a lot of value in publishing and a lot of gratification in elling your work to one of the big houses. I certainly don't want to take that away, because it's simply another method of achieving a goal. Not everyone is or should be interested in going the independent route, and I applaud anyone who sells their book in the mainstream. It's quite an accomplishment. However, this blog focuses on the Independent Writer and self-publisher, with all of the heartache and glory contained in that endeavor.
In closing I will leave you with a quote from Herbie the dentist elf in Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, who summed it up very well when he said:
"Let's be independent...together!"
