Bragging Rights

All the writers' manuals and markets, as well as websites devoted to the writing craft, have one thing in common nowadays: they strongly advise writers to employ social media as a valuable tool to promote their work. So that's what I'm doing here now--adding a link to my Amazon profile and list, albeit short to date, of my work. Writing is like any other type of artistic endeavor, as there is no point to doing it if it's just all going to end up in a drawer or file cabinet or obscure desk-top folder.




I started writing when I was 16, and a sophomore in high school. I'd read a biography of Phyllis Wheatley, a black slave girl who happened to have been very well educated and who went on to write poetry. And in typical impressionable teenage fashion, I thought, "If she could do it, why can't I?" I still have the original copies of all those very bad poems I churned out that first year, and I won't ever attempt to polish them, for they're a chronicle of my first efforts at a time when life held precious little else to look forward to.




Later, as a young mother who lacked the self-confidence to go out into the world and forge a path for herself, I stayed home, took care of my children, and wrote, much of which ended up in the aforementioned drawer. And later still, during my years as a non-traditional college student pursuing an English degree, I wrote even more; and it was about that time when a local newspaper editor who had, in the past, noticed my frequent letters to the editor, called to offer me a correspondent's job. Those years allowed me to become comfortable producing copy for the public eye, and I eventually went to work for a small local newspaper company as a reporter, as well as a weekly columnist for the very paper for whom I'd served years before as a correspondent. I soon tired of reporting, though, as I'm just not the inquisitive type. I'd much prefer to work from imagination than with cold facts that can't be manipulated, and that's why I love fiction. It's not unreasonable to say that, once embarked on a fictional journey, it sometimes takes you in a whole different direction than you anticipated.




That said, here's my brag: https://www.amazon.com/Rachel-Lovejoy/e/B00JJ259DS