Building a writing life

For the past 45 years, I have written almost every day. I make my living as a fulltime freelance writer, which I‘ve wanted to do since seventh grade, when I wrote my first very short book titled "The Secret of the Lost Inca Mines." What could be greater than making up stories and getting paid for them, I thought. Almost everything I’ve written for the past 40 years has been published.

I’ve written features, interviews, anecdotes, poetry, short stories, even a play, for magazines as Toy Farmer, Reader’s Digest, Houseboat, Arizona Highways, Saturday Evening Post, Sr. Perspective, and 240 others.

But my most potent joy has emanated from writing essays. They require me to think, often deeply, to dig the ore of words from the rock, and tumble them in order onto the paper to make the piece work. Or sometimes dig out diamonds of exactly the right words that add beauty, and make the sentences sing.

It’s satisfying to discover that many people like what I write, or how I write it. But that was not always so. My career began inauspiciously. In 1977 I resigned from teaching English to be a writer. Though I had never sold a single piece of writing, I was sure I knew enough and was good enough now that I could make my living at writing.

By the time I quit teaching, for years I had been learning the rudiments of the writing profession as well as writing pieces and sending them out. With zero success. During two free months after resigning I wrote a couple dozen pieces, sent them to Atlantic Monthly, New Yorker, Runner’s World, and others, and waited for checks to fill my mailbox.

Unfortunately, with great dispatch editors flung my articles back to me in the SASE (self-addressed, stamped envelopes) I was required to include if I wanted an answer. Each one included a standardized rejection slip: “Dear Writer. Thank you for sending us your work. Unfortunately it does not meet our present needs. Best of luck placing it elsewhere.”

One day amidst those standardized rejection slips came a personalized one typed on a 3 x 5 card from the editor at Isaac Asimov Science Fiction Magazine.

I opened the envelope, saw the typing, and thought, “Hallelujah! Finally, an editor who sees my worth.” I couldn’t wait to read the card, and cash the check. So I whipped it out to finally revel in good news: “Dear Bill,” it said. Personal indeed! I continued reading, and staggered as the floor fell out from beneath me. “Dear Bill, someone has to tell you. You will never be a writer. Your prose sounds like a jackhammer outside my window at 5 AM in the morning. Get another job, and leave the writing to those who can actually write.”

I ripped it up and tossed it into the basket, then sat down and cried. My dream of being a professional writer was dead. The editor had voiced what I feared but had never admitted — that I wasn’t good enough.

So I simply quit writing, and tried to salve my grief by lots of reading, running, and playing sports. As each additional rejection trickled in, I angrily tore the envelope in half and tossed it in the wastebasket.

A month later a rejection from Listen magazine drifted into my box. As usual I ripped the envelope in half and turned to the wastebasket only to notice edges of green paper inside the envelope. My mouth dropped open as I pulled out a now-two-piece check for $50 ($200 today) for an article ironically titled, "Are You Your Own Worst Enemy?" The envelope also contained a letter saying, “Please send more.” Sky-high, I cried again. I hadn’t been wrong!

That experience taught me powerful lessons: Pay more attention to my inner drive than words from outside, work hard, learn the craft, and never ever give up on a dream, no matter how difficult, even impossible, it might seem.

This is the opinion of Bill Vossler of Rockville, author of 18 books including his latest, "Days of Wonder: A Memoir of Growing Up." He can be reached at bvossler0@outlook.com.

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: My writing career begin inauspiciously, with many rejections.