Those Best Laid Plans

I graduated from high school in May of 1975. Everything I know about writing, I learned in high school. My English teacher — this was in the days before it became “Language Arts” — was tough as nails, knew her subject matter, and knew how to teach it. Here I am now, more than a few years later, and I can’t tell you the order of operations for a math equation but I know a split infinitive when I see one.

One of the things I recall from the literature portion of my high school studies is a quote by Robert Burns: “The best-laid schemes of mice and men often go awry.” No truer words have ever been uttered. I now find myself in a position where one of my best-laid schemes has gone awry.

After much thought, pondering, cussing and discussing among family and friends, and investigation into the pros and cons, I have decided to take the leap into self-publishing my sci-fi series of novels. This is not a move I take lightly, and I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do. But my gut tells me it is, and I seldom contradict my gut.

I’ve done the query agents thing. I’ve sent my query letter to more than one publishing house. I’ve received more rejections than L’il Abner ever threw at Daisy Mae. I did have one publisher that offered a contract but I had to decline. The conditions were not agreeable to me, which is a fancy way of saying they were seriously trying to screw me over without dinner and a movie first.

I asked myself why I wanted to publish my writing anyway. After more than one sleepless night pondering that particular question, I had to admit to myself that one of the major motivations is the number of people over my lifetime who’ve told me I couldn’t. Not just that I couldn’t publish a novel, but told me I couldn’t do a number of things I wanted to do. I don’t blame them so much as I blame myself for allowing them to convince me I couldn’t.

There are other reasons that I am now unwilling to wait the two or three years it would take to get a novel published through a traditional publisher. The foremost reason is my age. I’m not dead yet but I am on the downhill slide of my life expectancy. Time becomes an issue when you hit the mid-60s. It is for me, anyway.

I also want to get my entire four-novel series available on the market, and possibly a couple of other books if I have time before moving on to the next life. (I used to think Shirley McLane was nutso. Now, not so much…) Not so much because I want to see my name on the cover of an honest-to-God novel but because I want to leave my son something of potential value. Whatever my efforts garner in royalty payments will continue to go to him after I’m pushing up daisies. He’s my biggest fan and number one cheerleader, so he deserves it.

So…thus begins the grand foray into the world of independent publishing, making me an official independent author. We’ll see how it goes…