Three rejection letters last week. That’s 409 since 2022. I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet since Covid. And yes, there’ve been successes too. Fourteen short stories published last year. But it raises the proverbial question, “Why do I write?”
I really don’t have an
option, I used to say to myself. “I write because I have to,” and moved on. But
is that really the truth? What is driving me to spend an inordinate number of
hours each day putting stories onto paper, agonizing over word choice, and
where failure to find the perfect phrase causes insomnia? Or am I just a
dreamer, a gentleman of leisure without the inconvenience of an income, calmly
squandering the hours as if the world had arranged itself solely for my
amusement?
So, I had my
astrological profile analyzed. Perhaps I could learn something there. Eureka!
Yes. Among many other traits, Leos have a propensity for writing. And there’s
good company out there to prove it: J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame,
James Baldwin, Emily Brontë, Ray Bradbury, Suzanne Collins, and Alexander
Dumas. Wow! But me?
My Ancestry profile
shows that I am more than 50% Irish, and maybe that’s a place that might be
worth exploring. After all, the Irish have the reputation as “story tellers,”
and I have both maternal and paternal Irish connections. The genetic
connection! But what is all this writing stuff?
Neither of my parents
were writers, but both were avid readers, which they did every day of their
lives. They ensured that from a very early age my sisters and I were enrolled
in the local library. They were both gifted musicians— any writing relationship
there? And both had beautiful penmanship. It was only late in life that I
discovered my mother had kept a secret journal for years. Ahah. So, I can check
that box; she too needed to write!
I have a sister who is a
published author and writes both fantasy and poetry. Another is the family
archivist and a journalist. I have a niece who writes poetry and has published
a novel (romance). Another is a well-known local historian and researcher with
several publications. My grandniece is a magazine editor and has also published
several short stories. Does it all come down to genes?
I am convinced that my
maternal grandfather caused this family epidemic. With just an eighth grade,
rural education, and speaking English as a second language, he left Ireland and
sought his fortune in Manchester, UK. Determined to be a gentleman, he took
advantage of educational opportunities, attended night school and became a
voracious reader. But here is where the genetic connection gets interesting. He
was the landlord of The Shamrock Inn for thirty-six years, and while serving
the local communities including huge numbers of Irish immigrants, he became
known as a “storyteller,” a “Shannike,” (my poor translation from the Gaelic)!
So, is this what has
been driving me—genes?
When I sit down at my
computer, the room is quiet, but my mind is anything but. The moment my fingers
hover over the keyboard, the voices begin. Characters press forward from
somewhere just beyond thought, each one impatient, insistent, indignant almost,
at being ignored. They crowd around the edges of my imagination, talking over
one another, each trying to tell me who they really are. One wants to explain
the wound he has carried since childhood. Another interrupts, eager to confess
the secret she has hidden for years. A third laughs loudly, pushing his way
into the scene, declaring that the story is really about him. Their voices
overlap and jostle like people in a crowded room, each demanding to be heard
first, each certain their history matters most.
I sit there, listening,
half amused and half overwhelmed, trying to decide which one to follow.
Sometimes I feel less like a creator than a reluctant host at a gathering I did
not entirely plan. They arrive with their past already formed—their disappointments,
their triumphs, their small, peculiar habits—and all they want is the chance to
step forward and live on the page.
At moments like that, I
feel as if I am two different people. One of me sits quietly at the desk,
practical and deliberate, arranging sentences and choosing words with care. The
other moves freely among these restless figures, hearing their whispers, sensing
their moods, and letting them unfold their stories. Yet somehow the two selves
work together. One listens; the other writes. And out of that strange
partnership, the voices slowly become characters, the characters become
stories, and the empty page begins to fill.
And yet there is a third
person in the room.
Just when the voices are
at their loudest—when a wounded soldier is trying to confess his past and a
defiant young woman is insisting the story belongs to her, her child crying in
the background—another presence clears his throat with quiet authority.
It is the practical one.
He reminds me that the
dishwasher is finished and needs emptying. The garbage should really be taken
out before it smells. There are errands waiting, ordinary duties that have
nothing whatsoever to do with tragic heroes or secret histories.
He is unmoved by the
urgency of fictional lives.
While the characters
protest and try to drag him back to the glowing screen, this third self stands
firmly in his imagination’s doorway and points toward the kitchen. He has a
schedule, a sense of order, and a belief that life must continue in its sensible
rhythms.
And he always has the
last word.
“Later,” he says to the
characters crowding in his head. “I’ll come back later.”
So, I take care of my
chores. I step back into the simple machinery of daily life. Tonight my wife
and I will go out for hamburgers. Tomorrow I will play golf. And all the while,
somewhere behind the ordinary business of living, the voices will still be waiting—patient,
persistent, prepared, ready to pounce the moment I sit down at the computer.
I never met my
grandfather, yet I feel his presence in a way that is difficult to explain. He
was, by all accounts, a genuine Irish storyteller—the sort of man who, after
serving his customers a beer, could hold them there with nothing more than his
voice and a well-spun tale.
I know him only through
the stories others have told about him, but there is no doubt his influence
lives in me. Perhaps it is simply the inheritance of blood. I carry his genes,
after all. Or perhaps something less tangible travels quietly through families—the
impulse to shape events into stories, to notice the small human moments that
give life its color.
It may be a coincidence,
or something more deliberate, that I bear my grandfather’s name. Sometimes I
wonder if that alone carries a kind of quiet expectation, as if a fragment of
his voice found its way forward through time.
I never heard him tell a
story, yet when I sit down to write and the characters begin their clamoring, I
cannot help but feel that somewhere in the background there is an old Irish
storyteller smiling, leaning on the bar, a pint of beer in his hand, pleased
that the tradition—however faintly—has continued.
So I continue to write
my stories, not out of habit, but out of something closer to necessity. Along
the way, I founded a small gathering for short story writers. Once a month, we
come together simply to read, to listen, and to enjoy. There is no dissection
of sentences, no weighing of merit—only the quiet, generous act of sharing.
Voices rise and fall, some tentative, some assured, each carrying its own
rhythm and truth.
At the same time, I am
shaping my second collection of longer stories, a body of work that has taken
years to gather itself into form. I plan to self-publish it this summer—a
decision born not of impatience, but of resolve. These twenty-two stories have already
traveled far. I sent them out into the world, one by one, to magazines and
journals, each submission carrying a quiet hope. Most returned with courteous
rejections—carefully worded, professionally distant. Others vanished
altogether, slipping into that familiar void writers come to know too well,
where no answer arrives. Not a single story was accepted. And yet, strangely,
that absence of recognition never felt like the end of the journey.
The stories themselves
refused to disappear. The characters continued to speak. They lingered in the
background, interrupting, reminding, urging me forward. They did not care for
rejection letters or editorial silence; they demanded only to be heard. There
is a certain responsibility in that, a quiet obligation to give voice to what
insists on being heard.
So, I return to the
page, again and again, listening carefully, taking note, shaping their words
into something that might endure. Whether published or not, these stories
exist—and that, in the end, is reason enough to keep writing.
Bio:
Michael Barrington, has published 13 books, and more than 60 short stories. His most recent novel, Colourblind, recounts The Battle of Bamber Bridge. In 1943 the village welcomed 600 Black US soldiers but the army tried to impose segregation and violence errupted. He blogs on his website, www.mbwriter.net
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