February 10, 2009

I have occasionally been asked how and why I became a writer.

In my former life I was a civil trial attorney. My specialty in law is negligence. I represented various casualty insurance companies that wrote coverage for legal and medical mal-practice, automobile and product liability protection, and other policies with similar liability protection.

I took hundreds of depositions and appeared in court hundreds of time for jury and non jury trials and other court matters.

Eventually I became tired of asking the same necessary, but repetitive questions that are familiar to all trial attorneys.

What is your name?

Where do you live?

Directing your attention to—

Did there come a time when—

Now doctor, do you have an opinion, based upon reasonable medical certainty—

I began to wonder if maybe there might be life forms outside the courtroom and the legal system. I had written legal pleadings and briefs all my legal life, so why not try being a professional writer?

And so I did try. I submitted an unsolicited short story to a local magazine. They liked it and paid me for it!

This was going to be easy! Write them, submit them, and get paid. Piece of cake!

But oh no! From then on everything I submitted to anyone was rejected. I had experienced beginner’s luck. I received so many rejections that I almost wrote a story about receiving them. I didn’t though; I just kept submitting them and collecting the rejections. Very hard on one’s ego and self confidence.

Then suddenly, I was hired  by the Ocala, Florida “Star-Banner” to write a weekly column. I did that for about a year. Now writing was fun again. But it was also time to move on in my writing career. It was time to try writing a book.

I am now writing my fourth book. I expect to finish it in a few months. And so it goes.

My message of inspiration to all of you who are dedicated writers is, keep writing, ignore the rejections, even though you  might want to lash back at them, and eventually you will be “discovered” by the reading public. Then you  might receive a thunderous ovation whenever you appear for book signings.

That possibility is what keeps me writing. It might happen to me.