A Passion to Publish

I find myself, more and more every day, wishing that I could publish a book. The only thing that is holding me back, I believe, is my fear of it ending up on the clearance table at Chapters and the lack of focus with regards to a specific topic.

On what would I write? Fiction, perhaps, but the genre is so broad and there are so many ideas that I have that it would be hard to decide where to take it. Then, there is my love of opinionated pieces, vaguely reminisant of Rosie DiManno of The Toronto Star,* but I hate the aspects of journalism where you have to pump out a piece a day. For me, the creation would be perfectly do-able, however, the quickly paced environment and the "do-anything-for-a-story" attitude of a reporter simply isn't my style. There are certain lines which encompass me. I have not boxed myself in with will not's and cannot's, but my morals and standards, to which I set my daily life, I care not to change as they shape my person. Therefore, hunting down people and harrassing them just for a column in the paper is not what I consider ethical. And I can only assume that DiManno had to work her way up in the world of yellow news to having the coveted spot that she has, as that seems to be the only way nowadays.

On that note, I had considered to take on the enormous attempt to compile and publish a journal of sorts. I mean not of medical or academic, but of opinionated pieces that I have written as a collective reflection of us as a socialital whole. It would be of an informal nature, with both humor and madness, where I could just let the ranting wind carry me wherever it desires. You know, a simple and entertaining narrative of daily life and all that I've encountered.

Hmmm, perhaps that is possibility...

Mainly, my problem is that I can write for hours about life and my obervations of it. As my profile for this blog explains, I love life and I cannot help myself as my imagination runs wild. Most days, I find myself scrambling for a pen just so I can write down whatever I have developing in my head. Also, the way in which I write is so different than my peers in university. For example, I was sitting in my Professional Writing lecture at York University when a young woman interrupted our lecture by running in, grabbing some man's aviator glasses, proceeded to jump up onto the lecturn, tossed a banana into the audience and exited. The professor admitted soon after that it was a staged disruption and then asked of us one thing: to write a paragraph, however we care to, about what just happened. After about three minutes, she began to randomly choose students to read their pieces which, in nature, seemed all the same: "I saw a girl run...screaming...tossed a banana..." and et cetera. Then I heard her command, "You there, in the red hoodie. Read yours!"

She was looking right at me. So, I hesitantly began:

The Banana and Aviator Girl: Chaos finally conquered class. Who knew that a twenty-something, stark raving mad woman could disrupt and decidedly amuse a full lecture hall of students? Apparantly, redheads are that fiery!

The professor looked blankly at me. Before I could sink any lower into my chair, she announced, "Now that was a paragraph! You're cartainly taking the right class!" (Whew!)

I just hope that this ability to write is a gift that will stay with me until the grave. Now, I'm in no way claiming in any of this to be a good writer, however, I am saying that I am a writer who needs to write as this is all I know. Maybe one day, I'll be able to write enough to just compile an anthology of short stories, opinion pieces, human interest stories and so on.

My dream is to one day see my book on the new arrivals table of Chapters and, who knows? It might even reach the New York Times bestseller list...of course, with a nod of thanks to the book club queen herself!

*You can read some of Rosie DiManno's pieces at www.thestar.com by clicking on "Star Columnists," then "Rosie DiManno."