When friends and family asked me what I was planning to do in retirement, I would say that I was going back to my original life goal of being a failed writer.
It was meant as a joke, of course. I have always been a writer and didn’t see the end of my day job as the end of my writing life. But I was surprised how often the joke would lead to a discussion of exactly what was a failed writer?
To define a failed writer, you likely would have to have a firm grip on what is a successful writer. It can’t be broken down in economic terms, as in a successful writer can live off the proceeds of being a writer and a failed writer has failed to support him/her self with writing. I know of several successful writers who could not live off their writing. In our modern digital sharing age, the monetary benefits of writing have become even more scarce. Back in the 1990s I’d get $100 a pop for my weekly freelance newspaper columns. Not enough to live on, but a nice little supplement to my regular salary. In 2023, I got a one-off column published by the same newspaper. Compensation? Nothing. Nada. Goose egg.
I find today that most markets do offer something in support of the principle that authors should be paid for their work, but it can be as low as a few dollars and/or contributor copies of the publication.
So, it’s not about the money. What, then, is the benchmark of success? To me, that bar is getting your work published online, in a magazine, or a book. What about writing for sheer artistic fulfillment? Well, that’s all fine and good, but you’ll never know if you’re any good if you don’t submit a story to a total stranger who accepts the work for publication. J. D. Salinger spent 40 years writing for himself but that was after he published one of the great American novels. I suppose also that in addition to publishing a lot, the cherry on top of the sundae of writing success is to win some kind of award.
A failed writer could be somebody who wrote and submitted often but just never got the nod from a publisher. But even here some writers have opted for the self-publish route and achieved success with a large readership (Andy Wier, Hugh Howey).
Over the past two years I have managed to publish about a half dozen pieces. These include speculative fiction and narrative non-fiction. Not a huge number, but a start. They are listed on this page with links. Most are available to read online for free. My ambition is to keep writing and submitting and maybe get into a top tier publication (widely recognized for quality and willing to pay more than $10 dollars for a story). There is still work to be done on the road to success, but I can say right now that I have failed at being a failure.
Above are a selection of the writing tools I have used since 1987.
A giant artifact hangs in space near Jupiter. It contains a mystery (and nods to Arthur C. Clarke and Erma Bombeck).
Published in:
Every Day Fiction
A nighttime video-conference among old men starts with discussing hockey but ends in existential angst.
Published in:
Polar Borealis
In diplomacy, trust and mutual respect are especially difficult when the other is your worst nightmare.
Published in:
Daikaijuzine
If you think that day was less about conspiracy, more about incompetence and ass covering, you do not know the half of it.
Published in:
A Twist on Time
(A Read on the Run Anthology)
“Hallucination” is the tech term for when AI makes stuff up. Lying would be another way to say it.
Published in:
The London Free Press
I peaked in 1999, long before it all went to shit, and we lost our minds. Sorry about that. But was it ever fun!
Published in:
Y2K Quarterly
It was the end of a hard day hiking into the deep wilderness of Killarney Park. Then the girl in the bathing suit walked by.
To Be Published:
Great Lakes Review
September 2025
