Yesterday, after a church meeting that ended around 8 p.m., I changed into something comfortable, put on my slippers, and settled down for a night of correspondence. And this morning I'm up early licking stamps (although it's really "sticking" stamps now).
Over the past few months I've written a fair number of essays that I have honed, shaped and emblazoned with my final seal-of-approval . . . and now it is time to test the waters. So, I'm sending out a fresh batch of manuscripts, and have taken out a new home mortgage to pay for the postage required to mail this mound of paperwork. But here's what I'm sending "out there" for all of those unsuspecting editors.
I've written:
* An essay on George Washington and his fear of being buried alive.
* An essay on the unlikely friendship between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson and some of their final correspondence with each other before both died on July 4, 1826.
* An essay on James Madison and the writing of the U.S. Constitution
* An essay on the final hours of Gerald R. Ford
* A creative memoir that I wrote about my summer sightings of a pileated woodpecker
* A critical essay on publishing and profit
* A very old book proposal (a children's book) that I have revived and revised
* A story about a New York performance artist who leaps from tall buildings (fiction)
Most of these essays/memoirs/stories took me months, even years to produce, but I'm glad to finally get them out of my life and onto the road, hopefully, toward publication. We'll see. Once I finish loading the pickup truck with this mailing and dump all of this at the post office I'll be back home late tonight, writing more editors out there, begging them to give me a place in their publications.
Sure, I feel like a prostitute . . . but being used is just part of the process.
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