Wait, where’s the new stuff?

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Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

For the quick answer on where to read new content, head over to www.ColleenMarkley.com, where you’ll find my author platform. There, you can enjoy my writing related blogs (don’t worry, they’re still funny, and you don’t need to be a writer to enjoy them).

For the long answer, please do read below.

The blogs and stories of www.YesItReallyHappened.com were a labor of love, but lived in the world of fun stuff that I enjoyed. Writing about both the insane and inane parts of my life gave me an outlet that was cheaper than therapy. Laughter has always been my best medicine (or at least a decent coping mechanism). Back in 2011 (ish) when I started this blog, I had no idea where it would go, and I was okay with that. Somewhere along the way, I decided to write a book – a collection of some of these stories and other new ones that haven’t been published (yet). A friend suggested I send it to her editor friend, who was a big-wig in the publishing world. The big-wig gave me some fabulous compliments and feedback, which included the advice that new writers don’t usually succeed with collections like the one I’d written, and I should consider writing a novel if I wanted to succeed in publishing.

Consider writing a novel? Succeed in publishing?

In my life, I’ve written short stories, one-act plays, full-length screenplays, short and long form nonfiction articles, op-eds and opinion letters, and nonfiction memoir-like stories and blogs. But a full-length novel? Like, a real book? Sure, game on.

It was not easy. It was not fast. It was dark, and messy, and straddled that lovely little line in the sand between inspired muse and crazy serial killer wall map of ‘uh oh we found their evil lair.’ Apparently story plotting 90,000 words and multiple time lines looked a wee bit insane when I drew it all out and hung the various pages and index cards all around my house. My teens brought their friends over and asked if they wanted to see how nuts their mom was. It was a little nuts. It was also all-encompassing.

So, for a little while I continued to post here sporadically during 2018 and 2019, while still writing a novel about a pandemic virus that ends the world and only the women survive. By the time I finished the novel and decided to pitch it at the PitchSlam at the Writer’s Digest Conference in NYC, my writing had taken on a new life, and new direction, and begged a new website, AKA: The Author Platform. As much as I resisted the idea that I needed to market myself and tell everyone how awesome I am (which is hilarious since for the last few decades I’ve been reinforcing my self-deprecating humor), I wanted to embrace the things that the pros told me I needed to do in order to be considered serious about writing. Look at me. I’m funny, but oh so serious. I am a pro. You can trust me.

One might think, hmm, if you want someone to take you seriously, you might want to delete all this evidence where you have systematically documented how many times you have nearly lost your mind over things like critters (lice and parasites and mice and more mice), creatures (oh, those dogs are so cute and so much chaos), and all the other husband and kid related stories. Maybe keep the issues and ideas stuff since no one reads those anyway.

Nope. It’s all here. This is all me. I’ve done all that and made it through. Just like I will make it through whatever comes next, and have the perseverance to keep trying to be a published author, no matter how many obstacles the world throws in the way. Onwards!

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