Fifty Years of Writing

______________

Z A N S H I N

                                     Fifty Years of Writing

        The subtitle of my blog reads, “Celebrating fifty years of writing,” yet I haven't really done that. Perhaps now would be a good time.

         Yes, I've been writing stories, essays, philosophy columns and children's books for 50 years. My first published story was called “Viewpoint,” and was published in the Portland State Review in 1972. Actually, technically, this is not true. My first short story was published in the 1963 Marshall High School Yearbook. It was a horrible story called “The Eye of the Ivory Monkey,” but someone thought it was good enough to include in the yearbook. I didn't find out about it until a friend called me after the yearbook came out. It was an intense moment of both embarrassment and pride. But the PSU Review publication was the first story I actually submitted for publication, got accepted, and was proud of. That was followed by submissions to several small presses and university reviews, and by 1981, I had had enough work published to qualify for application for a National Endowment of the Arts Fellowship. I did apply, submitting my story “The Song Stealers” (published in the Colorado Review, and later in my short story collection, Sailing Away, published in 2000 by Lost Horse Press) And I won an NEA fellowship for the year 1982.

         In 1983, I entered the Willamette Wrter's Kay Snow competition. I submitted a story called “Vido's Stone” in the juvenile short story division, and won first place. The prize was fifty dollars, and a beautiful watercolor painting based on the story. The awards banquet cost my date and I thirty dollars, but the painting is even now hanging on the wall near where I am writing.  ("Vido's Stone" is posted below.)
       Since then I have written dozens of short stories, and a philosophy column called Zanshin which ran in the World Oriental Martial Arts Federation Newsletter which ran quarterly during the nineties and the --what-- the oughts?  Anyway, the best of those stories and columns I've posted here over the last year or so, and hope to continue to do so.

         In 2009, I published my non-fiction book Warrior Mind: Strategy and Philosophy from the Martial Arts. That book received excellent reviews and sold rather well, because my martial arts teacher, Grandmaster James R. Garrison, well known in the world of martial arts, advertised it on the Pacific Rim Martial Arts Academy website.

In 2012, I self-published a children's Christmas tale, The Archangel's Gift. Although this book has received good reviews from Blueink and Kirkus and an absolute rave review from Foreward Clarion, it has not done well. I have advertised it here on the blog, on Facebook, and Amazon, sent it out to newspapers and magazines for reviews, entered it in contests, given readings around the Northwest, and given out free copies to people in positions to pass the word to others. But there seems to be a stigma about self-published books that turns off the publishing world like a fart stink.

         Consequently, I find myself on the verge of attending the annual Willamette Writer's Conference to pitch The Archangel's Gift to an agent who could possibly secure me an actual mainstream publisher. I've never done this before, but the book is strong, as well as my confidence in it. I have no idea what to say, or how one actually does a pitch. Do they have a format? Do I have to kiss someone's ass? Can I give them one of the beautiful hardcover editions that I have been buying up, hoping to create a run on my own book? (Great plan, that. Like buying lottery tickets.)

        The pitch date is August 2^nd. I'll write a brief summary of that adventure afterwards. Wish me luck.