by Emily Hanlon
I am the daughter of an obsessed writer. My father, a math teacher by vocation, a writer by avocation, brought me up believing that writing is a fine passion and that the highlight of a writer’s life is being published. He gave me his love of the English language, great literature and great writers. He instructed me on the importance of realistic dialogue, creating characters we remember, and good plot twists. I was drawn to his typewriter before I could spell. In fact, one of our memorable photographs is of me at about age three, kneeling on a chair at the table where he wrote. My little hands are poised above the keys of his sturdy, black Underwood. My expression is thoughtful and fixed. By the side of the Underwood is a bottle of Schaefer beer.
When I was a child, I breathed in my father's passion for his own writing and being published. Before I was old enough to read his stories, I filled the manila envelopes with his manuscripts (the onion skin carbon copies ceremoniously filed away), pasted on the stamps and, holding the precious envelope in one hand and his hand in my other, walked to the mail box where together we slid the envelope into the slot. Then the wait began, ever hopeful, for the news that his story had been accepted. I’m not sure I knew what would happen when it was accepted, but I knew it would make him, and thus me very, very, very happy. Invariably, what happened, of course was that the manuscript was returned. I felt his dejection as if it were my own.
“Don’t worry, Daddy,” I remember telling him. “When I grow up, I’m going to put all your stories into a book and publish them myself.” It was a palpable dream for me.
When my father died, he left suitcases filled with short stories, only two of which had been published, both in Esquire. In addition, he’d written three novels about a private eye named Michael Oliver O’Toole, who remained his companion during his final years in a nursing home. Even when my father couldn’t remember who I was, he talked about Michael Oliver O’Toole.
This durable friendship with Michael Oliver O’Toole is one of my favorite memories of my writing father, and I have come to the conclusion that it is better to have a friend like Michael Oliver O’Toole than the memory of signing a fat publishing contract.
I wonder if Dad would agree with me...
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http://www.thefictionwritersjourney.com/article_Publish_or_Perish.htm
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