Audacity
21/06/23 04:02
June 21, 2023 (Vol. 17 No. 27) - In this, my 71st year on the planet, I have reinvented myself - again. Upon graduation from college just before Christmas 1973, I set out on a career as a broadcaster. Over the next decade, I was a disc jockey, ad salesman, reporter, anchor and play-by-play announcer. I eventually reinvented myself as a public relations practitioner, first for a small private college and later in several roles in North Carolina state government. Because I knew that my government job was totally dependent on the man or woman sitting in the governor's office, I reinvented myself again. I earned a master's degree from the University of North Carolina, a move that made it possible to change my career path for a third time and to become a college professor. In addition to being a teacher, I was also researcher with much of my focus on public relations history. That's a role I filled for nearly three decades. Now that I am retired, I have spent much of my time reinventing myself yet again. I have become a writer of historic fiction. I recently published my first attempt in this genre, a novel about a school shooting in an imaginary Missouri town (above). How successful is it? I have no clue. I've only received one quarterly sales report to date, one that doesn't reflect any of my marketing efforts. To be truthful, I didn't write the book to make myself rich. I wrote it because I have great interest in the subject of tragic gun violence. That passion for a subject is the same reason I wrote an earlier book, the history behind the construction of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952. Now, I am in the long, tedious and often frustrating process of finding a publisher for my second attempt at historic fiction, a story about growing up on Maryland's Eastern Shore during the 1960s. It is not autobiographical. However, it does reflect the times, events and places where I spent my formative years. I admit that trying to become a fiction writer in one's 70's takes a certain audacity. I like my newest novel. But there is absolutely no guarantee that others - especially publishers - will agree. But you don't know until you try. And, if this doesn't work, I have enough audacity left in me to reinvent myself again or, to put it another way, to keep on keeping on. That's it for now. Fear the Turtle. Photo Copyright David W. Guth, 2022.