The Challenge… well, the latest one

As a creative person, I always have to give myself new goals, fresh targets to shoot for, and a challenge which while possible, is not easily achieved. According to some insiders, I am that way in every aspect of my life. Maybe. It’s always good to test one’s self.

Anyhow, my wife a.k.a. ‘What’s-her-name’ believes that I’m powered not by the challenges I give myself, but by the huge the chip on my shoulder. Nope, I’ve never seen it, but… maybe. I do acknowledge the soul-filling satisfaction received when I prove someone wrong in their assessments and public whispers (ha!) that I’ll “never be able to achieve”—take your pick.

A decade or so ago, a friend challenged and encouraged me to post a poem on social media. I did and the response was pretty good. I kept at it, then created ‘Marlon’s Writings’ on social media as a platform to share my poetry and essays, not my few short stories, because they were either sexual or not well-written. I knew that without being told. That meant I needed to write more short stories and less poetry. Challenge accepted and conquered.

I was growing as a writer, and I was beginning to shed my fear about calling myself a writer. It sounded pretentious to me whenever I’d make the statement. There was nothing on my resume that would back up my claim. I had a bunch of poems, some short stories, but nothing had been published. I learned about self-publishing and saw that it was relatively easy. Ha! I thought up a concept where the book would be a collage of short stories and poems, with each section being titled my perceived color for a specific emotion. Black= depressed, red= passion, green= jealousy, etc. I titled it ‘The Colors of My Mind,’ put it together, and published my first book… without an editor, formatter, or a real cover designer. I learned from that, but I still refuse to this day to have it unpublished. Anyone who has read my work over the last six years would be amazed to see the progress I’ve made on this journey. Yeah, it’s available, and I still get a small royalty check every year from Lulu. But I’d done it—I was an author.

I kept going, growing with each tap on the keyboard, and then a short story I was working on about a man knowing exactly when he was going to die, refused to stop going. When it got to 10,000 words, I challenged myself to see if I could write a novel. That was in 2015 and that story that wouldn’t quit? It became ‘11:59,’ my first full-length novel, which in turn challenged me to see if I could make a series out of it. I did. ‘Singing to Butterflies’ is coming out this spring, and ‘The Tale of Noreen’ just crossed 10,000 words. Done.

One year, I challenged myself to submit stories, essays, poems, and novels to at least one hundred publishers and publications. The final tally was 121, and I had twenty-seven acceptances and contracts. Another year, I challenged myself to write a full-length erotic novel because the CEO at my former publisher (which will not be named!) stated that it couldn’t be done. So, I wrote ‘The Delicious Escape.’ Raspberries to him and them.

I’ve challenged myself to create and perform an audiobook. Done…multiple times. Write a children’s story. Done. Create a horror collection. Done with ‘In the Pale Moonlight.’ Write a children’s book in rhyme form. Done. It’s called ‘Ben Learns to Read.’ It’ll be submitted after I polish it up a bit. It’s 2024, and every January, I create a list of creative goals with deadlines. I used to send out an email to my inner circle with my yearly declaration, but I stopped that and I can’t remember why. What could I do to challenge and inspire myself? When the answer came to me, I grinned, typed it out, and got to work.

Drumroll.

My 2024 challenge is to finish creating eleven books, one a month, excepting December, because my friend and partner Venessa McDaniel Cerasale and I made an agreement not to work from Thanksgiving weekend until the new year. Daunting task, right? But, if you’ve ever heard or read about my personal vault, then you gotta know I have projects in there that have been started, then put back on the shelves to be examined at a later date. Well, I dusted some things off.

It’s March, and I’ve finished creating three books, ‘When Uncle Johnny Came Home,’ ‘The Weight of Memory,’ and ‘Over the Horizon,’ which underwent a thorough rewrite. I’m ahead of schedule. Now I’m challenging myself to finish writing ‘The Tale of Noreen’ by May first.

Challenge accepted.

P.S. How do you like the new place? Walk around and get comfortable here at marlonswritings.com
Peace.