How to Get Published

(I really don’t know how, but the algorithm says “how to” articles and videos do really well. But really, this article is about desire and desire is a really good thing too)

I’m a writer.

I write almost every day, so I'm a writer. Just like someone who runs every day is a runner, but may not have won any races. I am a writer. Not because I’m published. Well. I am. In three anthologies. And online magazines.

I’m a writer.

Yeah. That felt good to write.

I also read. Not as many books as I’d like to. But I read something everyday. Dr. Richard Georges, the Virgin Islands’ first Poet Laureate, told us during a writing course that “to write, you have to read”. I know he was talking about opening up our minds to different styles, learning literary language and expanding our vocabulary, but I also received this message: “If you want people to read your shit, you have to read the shit other people read to see why people read it.”?

So I began reading for research. But what started out as a discovery mission of others’ art turned into self examination. I started asking myself, “why would people want to read my shit when all this other good shit exists?”?

Sigh.

I know that’s stinking thinking and because I refused to stay in the sunken place, I wrote anyway. And shared anyway. Even if it made me cringe re-reading what I wrote. I realise now I have been fearful of publishing my own work because I’d look back at it and be like,

“That isn’t worthy of a second glance!”?

Or,?

“Yucky!”

Or,

“Why did you write that???”

Or,

“what were you thinking April???”

But now I know that’s the point.

I’m writing for me (and for you too, and so that God can be read in between the lines). I write for self examination. And to admit to the world that I really don’t know what I’m doing. So that others can feel free to admit the same. So in a sense, I’m an expression liberation leader!

High five through the tablet/ phone/ computer screen! We start the celebrations today!

So how can we celebrate??

By being you, question and answer, observe and learn, and write down your thoughts along the way. Because, how else will your current/ future spouse really know how weird you are. (I am joking! No, I’m not. They deserve to know your authentic self.)

And about weird thoughts, I’ve been brainstorming a concept I’m calling “The Economy of Shame.” It sounds sexy but it’s so yucky. It asserts that much of what we do in this crazy world hinges on some kind of shame. Associated with our ethnicity, income, culture, sexuality, religion, our bodies, our desires, even our own children. There’s a constant and cruel message of, “YOU HAVE TO BE ‘THIS’ AND IF YOU REFUSE, YOU SHOULD BE ASHAMED!”

I’m so over this type of economy, time for a new one, so today I affirm:

I WITNESS A WORLD WHERE GOD WRITES THE CHEQUES.

And you know what, He already does. He pays everything in FULL and ON TIME, and MORE THAN ENOUGH: OVERFLOW.?

On faith, I affirm, “I am BIG paid for my writing.”

I start to ponder the “how path” but then again I shouldn’t. I should just write and let God figure that other part out. He is a God of Abundance. “Everything received by man or woman is a gift from Heaven”.

So I continue to write and read. I read the Bible and think of how the original writers probably didn’t know how BIG the Bible was gonna be. And then I started thinking of what would make a book timeless, like the Bible. To continue to be read by generation after generation after generation. I think about this and feel responsibility. That me as a writer should write for posterity. Just in any event my book is the only book to exist if all the world were to die and come back to life, or to resurrect. Imagine if the only book was a book or Vybz Kartel songs. Actually, it’ll be a damn good poetry book.?

I was listening to a Vybz song, “Ever Blessed.” I love it. It makes me proud to be a woman. It will be one of the songs I dance to at my wedding. I’ll have the DJ tell all the parents of children to excuse my husband and I for five minutes and anyone who wants to stay will have to join in and dance with their lover.

Anyway…

He sings, “Your pussy coming like Bible…Loving you loving you like Rachel.”

Vybz is referring to Rachel from the Bible. Jacob loved Rachel so much he worked (unpaid) for her dad for fourteen years. His compensation request was to be able to marry her.

I think about how sweet that this love existed (and still exists) and is documented in a timeless work. I also think about how much Rachel loved Jacob and what she would write about him. I feel a poem bubbling…

And until that poem is fully cooked, I’ll keep writing. And I’ll keep posting “How to…” articles on LinkedIn until y’all tell me to stop…

…taking so long between articles!