TFG1MIKE 365 – 2019 Day 5
^Me in 2007 when I received my first published book of poetry.
The Writer in Me!
Hello all and welcome to a NEW Daily Blog series from me… TFG1Mike! The idea here is for me to write something, anything, once a day for 365 days. From January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019. In my fifth entry, I’ll be talking about my writing process, and my writing achievements over the years.
My writing for the website here varies, sometimes I’ll write reviews, and other times I’ll write a smaller opinion piece. I tend to only write reviews of stuff I enjoy. I figure there are enough reviewers out there that are being negative. That’s not to say I can’t be negative about some stuff I like. I just tend to go all in on the things I enjoy, and the positivity I think is a better aspect to focus on. Why did I begin writing you might ask… well it was for enjoyment, and then it turned into a coping mechanism.
I’ve been writing for 25 years… YES you read that correctly, I’ve been writing since I was age fourteen in 1994. In the beginning, and even to this day I do it for myself. I did always have the dream of being a published author. However I knew Random House or Simon and Schuster were never gonna come calling. In 1994 I was at let us say a crossroads in my life. This led me to discovering my writing aspirations. I had read stories and books all throughout my childhood, and while we all have that great feeling of being able to write the next Great American Novel… I knew for me it would never happen. The best I could do was short stories and poems. Why you might ask…? Well as I was going through middle school, and taking creative writing at the time, I had discovered that my attention to detail wasn’t as sharp as I would have liked it to be. I would write a 25 page story or so, and by page 26 I would have changed some major character detail. I couldn’t keep up the story. I eventually started writing short stories, and then poetry. I started the poetry writing sometime in late 1994. I only was writing them back then here and there, it wasn’t something I was doing every day.
From 1996 through 2006 I had been writing up a storm. I would go to Kinko’s and have the poems bound into a book. Sometime in 1999 I reached out to a subsidy publisher, but that would cost me money that I didn’t have. I still kept on writing, and I had even written a 6 book series by 2006. At the time it was called the “Good Intentions” series, I got the idea from the 1999 film Cruel Intentions. Most of my poetry is free verse. I never could get the hang of haikus or Limericks. Sonnets might be the second type I’d say I use.
I have read a lot of poetry in my lifetime, however I never felt the NEED to read poetry in order to write it. My process for crafting a poem is that once I come up with the title of the piece… the words come naturally afterwards. I can craft the story of the poem just from the title, most of the time. From 2007 through 2009 I had three books of poetry published. At the time when I was searching for a publisher who wouldn’t charge me a month’s worth of rent… I wasn’t sure if I’d even find one. I did find Maryland based America Star Books (then called PublishAmerica). All I wanted at age 27 was to have my writing published. I honestly never cared about making any money off my books at the time. Looking back I wish I had done more to promote them, and myself as a writer. You can find each of my books listed on Amazon, but they aren’t available to purchase anymore. Twists I, Twists II, and Never or Forever. That third book was originally supposed to be called Forever Or Never, but the publisher said there was another author at the time with a very similar title.
Even though I was never successful in the whole “being published” thing, I’m glad it happened. While I knew I was never going to be an over night success… I can still say I had my work published. When I write I need my headphones on blaring whatever music I’m listening to at the time. I also need to be at home, in my office, with the door closed. Sometimes I write in the dark, and other times I’ll have the light on. I write poetry from time to time these days, but it’s nowhere near the output I was putting out 12 years ago. I have to get back to it one of these days.
What is your writing process like? What are your needs in order to write? I have never understood why anyone takes their laptop to a Starbucks, and writes there… So if anyone can explain that let me know in the comments below!
Join me tomorrow morning January 6, 2019 as I’ll be writing about Dealing with Depression.
“Love Will Keep Us Alive, But Often Is Our Downfall” – Me in 1994 after hearing The Eagles’ song “Love Will Keep Us Alive”
