For 23 years after the appearance of my first book, I was stymied, as far as paper publication went.

Apart from the PDF publication of my second novel, in 2005, I couldn’t get a nibble. Not just the novels, either. Even my poetry books failed to garner print editions.

My on-the-job hours didn’t help either – nights and weekends. So much for networking.

~*~

Looking back, I can acknowledge how some writers’ circles have been very helpful along the way.

The first was an off-campus group in Bloomington gathered around the annual review Stoney Lonesome, named after a village in bucolic Brown County nearby. Once a month, its editors hosted a group that had a featured reader followed by an open mic and sometimes gentle criticism. It gave me the nudge to go deeper into poetry – “You’re hooked,” as one said – along with some great tips for submissions to the small-press scene. I was also invited to coedit an edition, which came out shortly I had relocated to Washington state.

I’ve never been one to be in a writers’ circle closely critiquing each other’s work. The time commitment was one problem, along with the difficulty of finding the right mix of participants. You know, like being a classical musician in a punk band.

There was a group in Baltimore during my sabbatical year, though I’m not sure where its core energy was. The highlight for me was a talk by Tom Clancy just before the movie version of Hunt for Red October was released. I don’t even remember where our regular meetings were held.

In New Hampshire, several open poetry mics took place on nights I could attend. One was weekly in Concord, filled with a hip young crowd and some edgy writing. I was the featured poet there on several occasions.

Another was a poetry group at the local Barnes & Noble, mostly young writers and good energy.

And then I relocated to the seacoast and got bumped to working the second shift, which did free up my Saturdays, if I could get up and away in time.

I joined the Poetry Society of New Hampshire, which had a major event each quarter – the same date, alas, as my ministry and counsel committee of New England Quakers met. The poetry group was more attuned to rhyme-tasters and school programs than to the avant-garde realm I’ve pursued.

Instead, a weekly series just over the state line in Massachusetts filled the gap. Held in a coffee house at the back of a boatyard and overlooking the harbor, Merrimac Mic had a lively bunch of regulars and gave me the featured reader spot multiple times. Isabell was a most appropriately eccentric emcee and organizer.

Performing your work before a crowd is a fine way of measuring its status. The energy of the audience can reflect whether the piece is effective as well as expose deficiencies. Besides, it’s an excellent way to pitch in with a group, as you would at a potluck dinner.

I’m not so sure about contests, but it seems to keep some other writers energized.

At the newspaper, I didn’t go straight from full-time employment to retirement. In the midst of some contentious contract negotiations, some of us were offered a chance to take a buyout. Then it was yanked off the table only to resurface on short notice. I took it.

That gave me a heavenly midwinter month where I indulged in a reading orgy, supported by the monthly severance checks. But the newsroom was short-staffed and wanted me back as a part-timer up to four days a week. Somehow, that felt quite different from the earlier tensions. I could choose which nights I wanted free, and I was no longer party to the office politics.

That’s how I had the Monday night off for a monthly Writers Night Out in Portsmouth, a wide-ranging mix of writers – filmmakers, ad copywriters, playwrights, public relations folks, in addition to poets, short-story writers, and novelists – who met over beer and appetizers or snacks. Writers’ schmooze, as I called it. Each of us briefly shared something about our latest project before the full gathering, accepted feedback, and then broke out into smaller clusters of similarly engaged individuals. Somehow, we weren’t competing with each other – I especially valued the perspective of a well-place sci fi writer and a younger multimedia artist – and the chatter was always helpful. The frustration of marketing was probably our No. 1 topic of discussion.

Those events ran about the time I took up blogging – or building my platform, as we were advised. It’s probably where I first heard about WordPress. And it’s definitely where I first heard mention of Smashwords. (What!?)

Yes, especially, Smashwords.

I hadn’t even considered the option of ebooks, and everything I’d heard up to that point was beyond my budget. Not so here.

Now, as I was saying about getting together with other writers? It really is essential.

Let me confess to the allure of having an author’s photo and bio blip on the back dust jacket of a hardback volume. That’s always carried so much more gravitas than a mere newspaper byline – in my early days reserved only for major stories rather than distributed to just about every headlined item, in part to shift the blame for errors – or, one step up, the columnist’s thumbnail mug shots, for the truly honored writers. A magazine’s contributors page was a step up, especially when they included a full-color photo.

It’s not that being honored was essential – I was an anonymous, behind-the-scenes copy editor, after all – but more an acknowledgment of success, especially when it signified not being a hack. It’s just that everyone harbors a desire to be important, at least to someone, right?

~*~

For me, having the manuscripts but working on them part-time, I sensed myself racing a ticking clock. Would time run out on me?

The book publishing world was shrinking, as was daily newspaper journalism that provided my paychecks. Fewer houses were publishing fiction, and even those were in turmoil. They wanted blockbusters rather than the cottage-industry lines that previously prevailed.

Literary agents were struggling to support the writers they had and were less likely to take on new clients who would require more time and effort to promote. One, who had been considered hot just the previous year, replied to my query – a rarity, by the way – saying my proposal was an important book but not “commercially viable.” Another, equally acclaimed, vented her frustration with the changing publishing world and her struggles to cope within it.

Well, it did remind me of a letter I received from a newspaper editor I greatly admired during one of my job-hunting interludes. He was warm and welcoming, but confessed his career had turned into heading papers through their final days. From what I saw, he did manage some glorious sunsets.

My personal writing turned to several nonfiction projects that had commercial potential, but they, too, failed to break through the brick wall. One problem was that I was only a writer rather than an expert with academic or other highly placed credits.

It was a vicious circle. To get published, you had to have been published to some success.

~*~

It paralleled my earlier efforts to land a position on a major metropolitan newspaper. There had been some near misses, but the Union Leader proved to be a better fit for my remaining career. I even made it to the finishing line in a rapidly shrinking field.

In addition, “making it” as a poet was looking more and more like a dead end. Who can even name a living poet?