Anyone in academe quakes at the little phrase: “Publish or perish.” For many, this means toiling over abstruse ideas and flogging them to various presses in the vain hope of publication to tenure, the academic equivalent of the good life. As a recovering academic, this wee phrase holds a new intrigue. It encapsulates my raison d’etre.
I am a self confessed writer. I want to share these stories my fevered and short-circuiting brain birthed. Without sharing, my stories seem like toddlers – cute but not mature. Publishing them allows the stories to proceed through the rites of passage where at the end of the tunnel they can stand on their own in the glorious world of the readers.
What happens when a book won’t be published? I answer with a loud “YET!” It means I must rework, edit, review, and labour to make my story walk through the tunnel. Sometimes the story must rest whilst I work on another. But they will be published – eventually.
Some days I feel as though I’ll die if these stories don’t see the light of day. But that fever gives me energy to keep writing, editing, networking, and learning so I won’t perish. At least not yet – I have a few more stories to tell.
Stephanie Jarkins
www.gothmomz.com
twitter: skjarkins
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Some of us use violet hair dye to shock our parents when we are teens. Others of us didn’t dare. Some of us keep with the amethyst locks through our twenties. Others just pine and pray for the right moment. Some of us have the purple fever in our thirties – flaunting our unnatural coloured coifs neither caring nor apologizing. Others decide to join in.
I’m a late purple hair club member. When my child was two, I celebrated a milestone birthday. I gained the gumption to do the purple. My hair dresser dutifully bleached, dyed, etc. I emerged with a glorious purple fade in the back and my purple blaze in the front. I loved it … except for turning my tub, pillowcase, fake pearl necklace, neck, fingers, everything – purple! Then to my horror, my hair faded to the dreaded anti colour – PINK!
What to do? Hie me back to my long suffering hair dresser. Different purple dye, longer processing time, different this, that, and the other. The purple deigned to remain with me longer. Then the evil pink reemerged like an unwanted ex-boyfriend. Always lurking in the shadows, never completely repelled. By then my hair felt traumatized by the bleachings.
At lunch some time later, I spy my answer. A lovely mother with black straight lustrous hair and a purple blaze to die for. I interrupt her conversation and asked “What dye did you use for your purple?”
She let me in on a little secret – extensions. Her’s looked natural – as natural as a fluorescent purple does – no blunt ends, similar length to her own hair, not too plastic looking.
No more bleaching for me. My hair thanked me. Now I can look like an anime character whenever the spirit moves me.
For me, purple works. But there is an electric blue I saw the other day. Hmmm, I wonder…
Stephanie Jarkins
www.gothmomz.com
twitter: skjarkins
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My father disinterred all my childhood papers. After twenty years, I’d given up all hope of seeing them again. Sure that they had been recycled as fire lighters (thank you, Douglas Adams) during my many moves across countries and various states. Wrong. My school photos (looking nothing like me, according to my husband) and all my special papers survived. The most valuable paper is my sixth grade report card.
To explain, I skipped grade five for reasons that are not important. I had something to prove in grade six. My indomitable balding red-headed British teacher, Mr. Burt, had his hands full. He was the only teacher who gave me two weeks detention to work on my handwriting. (It didn’t help). His comment on my report card was:
“Stephanie sometimes does a good impersonation of a cross between William Lyon MacKenzie and Ma Murray!”
This will mean little to my American friends but may mean a touch more to my Canadian compatriots.
To explain, William Lyon MacKenzie (not the Prime Minister) was a Scotsman born 1795 and died 1861. He was an insurgent, journalist, first mayor of Toronto, and leader of the 1837 rebellions. He was described as forthright and forceful. (Nevermind the armed rebellion part – so un-Canadian.)
Now to Ma Murray, it is she with whom I identify far more. She was a journalist and suffragette. A firey Kansan who moved up north with her sister and kept her shoot from the hip American attitude even in the most frigidly polite Canadian society. God bless her.
She who ended most of her editorials with “That’s fer damshur.” This from a woman writing in the early part of the twentieth century and on.
What does this mean? I likely won’t start a rebellion, thank goodness. Nor will I own a newspaper. However, it does mean that my sixth grade teacher had my number oh so long ago and the older I get the more I become like I was in the sixth grade.
And that’s fer damshur!
Stephanie Jarkins
www.gothmomz.com
twitter: skjarkins
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Good ol’ Hammie. Gotta love him.
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? Hamlet 3/1
What is a fiction writer? In the midst of pitching, marketing, pleading, and defensive angst, it is a tough question to answer. Especially when cornered at the soccer field watching your kid get pummeled for the umpteenth time and you are making small talk with the mom next to you. Unless one is on the NYT best seller list or prominently displayed at the local B&N, what do YOU say to, “Oh are you published?”
I answer, in all honesty, “Yes I am published.” Followed up with a quick ”Do you have a spare $150 to read my book? You’ll enjoy it if you are interested in early Syriac Christianity.
Fiction book published? No. Not yet.”
Will my stories contribute to world knowledge? No. I’ve done that and the world hasn’t noticed yet. Will my stories take you to another place and let you enjoy an escapist minute, hour, or day. Yes. I’m not highfaluting. I’m writing English (usually) fiction with a paucity of footnotes, languages, and bibliographies. What I can promise you is a fun time with a fair amount of blood, sweat, and tears behind it.
Is it worth it? Darn tootin!
Stephanie Jarkins
www.gothmomz.com
twitter: skjarkins
8 Comments
Publish or Perish