This seven-part series will cover the 2 ½-year time span between the day I set out to become an author and the day I became one.

Becoming an Author – Part One
Winter 2006

It was January 2006. Our family had survived a stressful move/remodel/live in a construction zone period for the previous four months. (Think “sleep on the futon in the middle of the kitchen” and “power saw on my stove.”) I had served as general contractor on the project, while trying to keep the chaos in our house from driving me to the brink of madness. By the time the sub-zero temperatures reached our Wisconsin home, our keel was even again and I found myself with a luxury.

Time.

The only work I was doing outside the home, was that related to my part-time business. My kids were in school during the day. And I generally hibernate during most of the snowy months. I’d always thought about becoming a writer, but it never seemed to be the right time. There was always so much to do, and for me, my muse never visited unless I had uninterrupted time – alone with my thoughts. If I was ever going to try my hand at writing, I needed to do it then, before we made the decision for me to go back to work in a school system, and while I had no major projects on the horizon.

I joined the online forum, Absolute Write and devoured the advice offered there by experienced and struggling writers. I signed up for a course – “Travel Writing: From Free Trips to Flat Tires”, taught by travel writer Amanda Castleman. The course cost about $300, which was more than I had paid for some graduate level coursework, but the ten-week course promised to walk us through the process of submitting to magazines, as well as line-edits. That’s what I really needed.

I’ll never forget my first query to a magazine. I submitted it to Boy’s Life. The query was about ice fishing tips and tricks, from the perspective of a seven-year-old boy.

Take a five-gallon bucket, a snow covered lake and a 12-inch hole and what do you get? Perfect fishing conditions. At least that’s what seven-year-old, Craig tells me. An avid fisherman for half his life, he proves without a doubt that ice fishing isn’t just for old men in a shack.

Like its warm-weather cousin, ice fishing is a science, which is why many would-be fishermen can’t catch fish. What equipment is necessary? When will the crappies bite? Which bait works best? These are critical questions for anyone hoping to fill their limit.

I propose a 750-word article in your nature or sports department, with a sidebar. And I would provide photographs, according to your technical specifications.

The ice in Northern Wisconsin is still safe into March, and I could submit the completed article within two weeks.

Thank you for your consideration. I have enclosed a SASE and look forward to your response.

My second query was to Budget Travel, for its True Stories section. I was naïve – I didn’t yet realize that submitting to national magazines might be setting my unpublished sights too high. I queried numerous other magazines as well – more than 100 of them within a four-month time frame. And I hooked up with another student writer from Australia. Although her son was much older than my kids, she had worked as a teacher for years and I found we had much in common. We edited each others’ work outside of the course and provided the cheerleading we both needed. Writers need a lot of encouragement during the long weeks with no response from editors – and especially after a never-ending series of rejected queries.

Becoming an Author series:
Part One — Winter 2006
Part Two — Spring 2006
Part Three — Summer 2006
Part Four — Fall 2006
Part Five — Winter-Spring 2007
Part Six — July 2007-February 2008
Part Seven — Spring 2008
Photos of Search Institute Press

My book, Empowering Youth: How to Encourage Young Leaders to Do Great Things, is now available, from Search Institute Press.