The One True and Only Way -- To Become Published (Part 3)

Continued from Part 2:

The reason why the HWA's One True Method doesn't work for me is that I have Attention Deficit Disorder. I was diagnosed at a young age, and with the help of medication and therapy I learned how to deal with it, but no one can be cured of it, so I still have it and it still affects me. One aspect of ADD is difficulty concentrating on the task at hand. People with ADD are easily distracted and are more susceptible to boredom and frustration. They too readily abandon current projects to pursue new ideas.

Though I've know I've had ADD all my life, I didn't equate it with my writing problem until I saw a biography of Leonardo Da Vinci on The History Channel, and one historian speculated that he may have had some form of ADD because of his lifelong penchant for abandoning projects unfinished. As he described it, once Da Vinci had found a solution for whatever artistic problem he was working on, he lost interest in finishing the work because it became drudgery that bored him.

That described my problem practically to a tee. I would get an idea for a story and start working on it, but when the excitement wore off and the writing became drudgery, I would lose interest, and I was easily distracted by the next story idea that inspired me. Once I understood that, the solution was obvious: work on more than one story simultaneously instead of one at a time. The idea was that, if I got tired with one story, I would work on another, and when I get tired with it, I would go back to the first. And so on.

I didn't know whether it would work, and for awhile I doubted it would. But the first sign of success was when I didn't completely abandon old stories but went back to them with renewed excitement. Then I actually finished a story, then another, and then another, all the while starting on new projects with no sense of abandoning the old ones. By the time I had joined the HWA, I had completed six stories, one of which I sold for a cent a word, which qualified me for Affiliate membership.

My reason for joining was because the HWA website advertised the discussion board as a place for inexperienced writers to learn from experienced ones how to be professional writers. I hoped that now that I was finishing stories I could become commercially published. Unfortunately, it didn't take me long to discover that all the Actives could do was teach Affiliates how to qualify as Active members, and the only way they could do that was promote the One True Method and certain small specialty horror presses. The only thing else they did was boast of their own successes and stroke each others' egos. And denigrate Affiliates who didn't show what they thought should be the proper deferential respect for Actives.

A case in point was when another Affiliate asked for help with his inability to discipline himself to write. The problem he described resembled mine, so I told him what I did to get around it. Another member told him writing was a job, like mowing the lawn, and that he should stop whining and just do it if he was really serious. In his reply he thanked us both, but then he stated that it sounded like I had the right insight into his problem and he was going to try my idea. That prompted the other member to say that I was just an Affiliate and I didn't know what I was talking about. When I explained that my method was working well for me, he compared his publishing credentials to mine, pointing out that he was professionally published whereas I was not, and concluded by saying that I should just keep my mouth shut and follow his advice. Other members who added their opinions didn't criticize him for his rudeness, but did criticize me for "disrespecting" him.

And that was pretty much par for the course as far as discussions on the board were concerned. I stuck it out as long as I could, but I finally got fed up with the elitism and left the HWA. Since then, I still haven't been professionally published, and now I'm self-publishing, but I am still completing stories. I don't claim my method will work for everyone, but it is the One True Method for me.

Postscript: Since I originally wrote that, I have self-published 27 ebooks (#28 tomorrow), and readers have downloaded 2000 copies total so far. That may not sound like much, but the average print run for the hardcover edition of a new author's first book is only a few thousand copies, so in less than a year I have "sold" nearly as many copies. Granted, the analogy is not perfect: ebooks are more like paperbacks, and that 2000 copies is spread over all 27 ebooks. However, people are still downloading all my ebooks, even those published six months ago. So self-publishing seems to work for me; at least, people are able to read my stuff now.

I haven't given up on traditional publishing. Over the summer I submitted to a horror anthology (the story was ultimately rejected; no big surprise) and I have recently submitted to Tor.com and Lovecraft eZine. But so far my "luck" is holding; I have not yet seen any of my stories commercially published.

Why is the subject for another post.