Kaye George: The Story of One

Welcome today's guest, Kaye George. An Agatha nominated short story writer, Kaye is the author of CHOKE: An Imogene Duckworthy Mystery (Mainly Murder Press), as well as A PATCHWORK OF STORIES, a collection of her previously published stories, and THE BAVARIAN KRISP CAPER, available at Untreed Reads. FISH TALES: The Guppy Anthology contains her story, "The Truck Contest". She reviews for "Suspense Magazine", and writes for several newsletters and blogs. She, her husband, and a rescued feral cat named Agamemnon live together in Texas, near Austin. Visit Kaye at kayegeorge.com, travelswithkaye.blogspot.com, and allthingswriting.blogspot.com. 

Once upon a time there was one writer who liked to write short stories. She wanted to get one published. She wrote one. She sent it to one prestigious magazine. She got one rejection slip. She wrote another. She wrote many, but didn't get any published. Instead she had one drawer full of rejections slips.

Years went by. The she decided she wanted to get one novel published. So she wrote one. She sent it to one agent. She got one rejection slip. She wrote more novels and got more rejection slips. Eventually, she had one file drawer full of them.

Meanwhile, frustrated with the novels, she returned to writing short stories and got one published. She danced and shouted for joy. Then she got another one published. But she still wanted to get just one novel into print. She wrote more of them and collected more rejection slips.

Years went by. Then, one day, one publisher wanted to see her latest novel. She danced and shouted for joy. The publisher bought her novel and she now has one book for sale!

To stick with the theme, she decided on a one word title. (That's not really the reason, the title has nothing to do with this little piece, but it fits the theme, so I'm going with it.)

How about the song made popular by Three Dog Night, "One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do"? That applies to writers, to a degree. A writer, unless doing a collaboration, writes alone. I consider writing one of the loneliest things I've ever done. Until I attend a conference and meet up with all the other writers (All the Lonely People?).

I'll stick one other reference in here. "One small step." We writers take things one step at a time. Writer, revise, edit, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, submit, resubmit, resubmit, etc. If we repeat the steps enough times (waaay more than one!), we might eventually have publishing success.

I hope you've enjoyed my little riff on the number one.