What I’ve Learned about Writing and Publishing

© Kim Smith 2009 all rights reserved

Murder By 4 is thrilled to honor one of our own, Kim Smith, as she begins her February 2009, virtual book tour to promote her debut book, Avenging Angels.

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When Marta asked me to write something for this article, I had to think, and think hard. I really wanted to say something that would matter to you as a reader or a writer.

Since embarking on the journey as a published author, I’ve learned so much about myself! For example, although I am a pretty meek and mild kinda gal, I can take the bull by the horns and wrestle with him a ways. I can face adversity and stand tall. That’s a great thing to find out about yourself, in case you wondered.

It took a while but I finally learned that no matter if life throws you a passel of lemons, there is a tall glass of lemonade waiting down the road somewhere. You can turn any situation into a positive experience if you really want to. It’s only when you let struggles swamp you that you lose sight of the prize.

And it’s perfectly okay if a piece of writing lives out its life on its own terms. Whether it gets in print or not, whether it ever gets read by another soul or not, is not the vital part of the process. The important thing is to just do it. Write and be free. Let those ideas flow, who cares if it is not bestseller fodder? It’s your story and creative side wishing to be expressed.

You can’t say no to writing no matter what you think. It will come out while you are examining your husband’s torn long johns. It will come out while you are painting your toenails that ghastly green. As long as life happens, writers will be filled with the desire to write. So focus on the passion! Get busy and harness some of that desire into something that you can plant your name on and show someone!

How about this? You write a five hundred-word article just like I have here. Write it about a yard sale where you find something that you had sold at a yard sale a year ago and you sort of sorrowed over selling it, only now, you are glad to see it is moving on so someone else will have a chance to love it, too.

Now apply that story to your writing life, and you will understand how it feels to send a piece out into the world and then see it again in all of its glory on the page as a published piece.

The publishing industry teaches a writer hard lessons. What I’ve learned about it is that just because someone says “yes” doesn’t make you somebody, and just because someone says “no” doesn’t mean they meant it personally. That takes a lot of soul-searching to understand. Let me pave the way for the readers out there contemplating a publishing career right now. If you want to write – do it. If you want to be published – do it better than anyone else. Make it your goal to collect “yes” and not “no”.

If I could change any one thing, it would have to be that I wish I had started earlier. I think of all the stories I have written and trashed (never do this!!!), and the number of stories dancing in my head waiting to be written, and I realize a lifetime is not long enough.

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About the author:
Kim Smith was born in Memphis Tennessee, the youngest of four children. After a short stint in a Northwest Mississippi junior college, during the era of John Grisham’s rise as a lawyer, she gave up educational pursuits to marry and begin family life.

She has worked in many fields in her life, from fast food waitress to telephone sales. “I always got the seniors on the phone who were lonely and wanted someone to talk to. My boss couldn’t understand why in the world I spent so much time talking to them and not enough time selling. That was when I realized I love people and care deeply about their lives.”

Writing was a dream, hidden but not forgotten, and soon Kim began to talk again of trying her hand at it. She played with words, and wrote several poems, one of which was picked up for an anthology

One day in the early nineties her husband came home with a desktop computer and sat her in front of it. “Now you have no more excuses,” he said, and she realized the truth in his words. Procrastination, now no longer an option, she took off on the pursuit of penning her first book. Though that book, a young adult fantasy, was lost due to unforeseen circumstances, she kept going, writing a historical romance, and another YA.

When she decided to try out her hand at mystery writing, she discovered her true love and niche in the writing journey. She has since had four short stories, and her first mystery novel accepted for publication.

Kim is a member of Sisters in Crime, and is a Coffeetime Romance and More author member. She still lives in the Mid South region of the United States and is currently working on her second book in the Shannon

Submitted by: Marta Stephens, Author of the Sam Harper Crime Mystery Series