WordPress automatically titles your first post “Hello World!” for you, but I feel like I’ve already said hello. I just finished writing the text for the Home page. There, among other things, I said:

In my quest for publication, I’ve come across a lot of advice – but most of it was written in retrospect. Those kinds of “how I got to be the amazing accomplished author I am now” articles are great, but after a while, reading them made me feel like a hamster on a wheel with a massive to-do list. “This one says just write first, wait this other one said have a business name and card, or actually should I have enrolled in a lit program years ago??” When I found that I was running myself into the ground with all those worries, I decided to start this site. Rather than scour the internet for yet another surefire-publication checklist, I’m going to focus on my own journey, one step at a time, as it unfolds. I chose the name “Beyond” because there’s more to this than simply writing, and because I suspect that there’s more to publishing than simply following a list.

me, on this site, about 15 minutes ago

That explanation really is the foundation for this blog — otherwise, I wouldn’t go to the awfully silly lengths of self-quoting.

And at the risk of becoming what I’m afraid of, let me point out that while this post is the first on a new website, it’s anything but the start of a new project. Instead, it’s a new adaptation of something I’ve been working on for years now. A rough timeline, by way of summary:

  • Since Forever: I’ve been writing but usually was too shy to share it
  • Briefly in middle school: I flirted with publishing, frequently making my own cards and labelling them “Hartford Printing Press”!
  • During college: I set aside any thoughts of publishing and in fact most fiction writing
  • After college: I returned to writing and proceeded to knock out a four-novel series, two standalone novels, and dozens of stories in about four years (not saying anything about the quality of any of those!)
  • 2020 (ah, 2020): I finally worked myself up to seriously trying for publication. I joined a bunch of writing groups, got one of those novels professionally edited, bought myself a copy of Writer’s Market, signed up for Query Tracker, and sent out series after series of increasingly-less-amateur query letters
  • 2021: I landed here.

The thing is, my 2020 step is where most publishing advice articles end – and where most people, I suspect, are left stuck. And while I could make a bitter comment about 2020, I won’t. Because honestly, I’m okay with the fact that I haven’t figured everything out yet and that the journey is continuing. What has finally hit home with me (no matter how many times you read it, it doesn’t always sink in!) is that every journey is organic. And subject to a lot of luck.