Milestone. Seeing my writing in print for the first time.

This week I saw my writing published in physical print for the first time.

It was part of a compilation journal, so this isn’t exclusively my work, but it’s a milestone.

I can hold it in my hands and show people my writing without having to send them some dodgy-looking internet link.

They threw a launch event and everything.

Unfortunately, my ticket to the launch adamantly stated that I wasn’t allowed to bring a plus one. I assumed this was to promote a bit of networking among the contributers. But when I got there, everyone else seemed to have brought someone along.

Sometimes it pays to ignore instructions.

When I arrived they asked whose guest I was. I told them I wasn’t anyone’s guest. I was a contributor. They didn’t quite know what to do with me after that.

It pays to ignore instructions.

Aside from a few of the organisers and a stray boyfriend who got dragged along on one of those elusive plus-one tickets, I was the only male in the room.

Not that that’s a problem as a rule. But it definitely made things harder in that particular room.

Writers aren’t the most social types at the best of times. So when the norm is to huddle close to the cattle with the same markings as you, it doesn’t help to be the only goat among the herd.

In any case, I did the same thing everyone else did. I clung to the one non-writer in the room simply because he looked a bit like me, I made as much small talk about engine part marketing as I could, drank too many beers for a Monday night and got through it.

While I try to avoid these prison cafeteria-type scenarios as often as I can, if I manage to carry on down this writing road, I suspect I’ve got more of the above to look forward to in my future.

That’s not a complaint about the event, the organisers or anyone involved, it’s just an observation of the lay of the land.

Among writerly types, I’m the odd one out.

But I figure this will eventually benefit me. If I make it past the turtle-on-the-beach stage, it’s got to hit a tipping point right?

Eventually, odd translates into novelty, novelty translates into interesting. At least I know I’m not another stock model fresh off the conveyor belt.

I’ve also got to assume that the only reason I’m such an odd one out at events like this is because all the thin-skinned versions of myself get scared off by that awkward barrier to entry before they even make it there.

So that’s got to be some type of leg up.

No?

Now after all that ranting, I haven’t actually said anything about the story that was published. I can’t find it online yet, but they promised it would be up there soon.

Here’s a link to the full journal, my story is on page 35

This experience taught me more than I thought it would, so I’ll go into that in a bit more detail shortly.