Published Author vs. Lottery Winner

One of my coworkers at the (top secret) flavor company often says that she needs to win the lottery. I agreed with her…the first time. And then I realized that isn’t my greatest wish. So now I’m going to tell you this and once I write it (and you read it), believe me. THIS IS TRUE. I’M NOT KIDDING. So don't laugh like I am. Ready? Take note, because here it is: I WOULD RATHER BE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR THAN A LOTTERY WINNER.

Okay, yes, if I were to win the lottery it’s not as if I’d turn that down. Money would be nice. Very nice. And depending on just how much it was, I’d probably use it to self-publish one (or more) of my novels. But here’s the thing: I would rather get them published the not-self way. I would rather skip the money for the dream of walking into bookstores and seeing my work on the shelves, published, hardback, beautiful.

I’ve had this dream for a long, long time.

When I was in fourth grade, my friends and I read a lot of R.L. Stine’s Fear Street books. Most of my friends stopped there, but not me. I wrote mini Fear Street stories. I’ve lost them all by now, which is probably a good thing. I’m not sure my fourth grade writing would be readable.

Then, in fifth grade, my teacher loved rainforest things. She decorated our room with exotic plants and flowers. We had tropical birds, frogs, and lizards. So I wrote a little book called The Enchanted Rainforest, which you can see if you go to my website (www.tracygoeke.com). I still have it, mostly because it’s actually bound between two pieces of relatively sturdy cardboard. My best friend at the time drew the illustrations for the story and we loved it. Of course, I was in fifth grade, so the writing has its issues—not the least of which is a temporal anomaly.

I must have continued writing in middle school, but I don’t have any stories left from that time. I do, however, have the novel I wrote in high school. More than anything else, it was a distraction when I was bored in class. But it was also starting to shape a dream of what I wanted to be when I grew up. It’s partly because of that novel—and because of my high school English teachers—that when I started looking at colleges, I was pretty sure I wanted to declare an English/Creative Writing major.

Things don’t always work out the way we plan. This I know. (As does my coworker who has yet to win the lottery.) The school picked me, I think, not the other way around. Not sure how, but it did. When I was there visiting, I remember the professors making an English major sound TERRIFICALLY BORING. So I went with plan B, which was the sciences. When I started at Valparaiso University, I declared a Biology/Chemistry major. We all make mistakes.

Not that my writer self let me make that mistake for long. By the end of freshman year, I’d decided to double major. Luckily, most of the general education courses overlapped, so I could feasibly fit in both a science and English degree in four years. And I did. I even wrote a novel senior year. Because necessary. Because dream.

I’ll admit I got sidetracked after college. I needed to make money, so I got a job in the sciences. I worked first as a lab tech for a stem cell company, a hell I’ll not describe here (you’re welcome). It took three years for me to move on from that hell, which brings us to my present place at the (top secret) flavor company. Best part of this flavor gig? I work normal hours, get weekends, vacations, holidays. I have spare time. So I started writing again. I picked up where I left off, though with a few more years of reading tucked under my belt. First stop? FOR PARIS, FOR LOVE, a fictional version of my semester abroad in Paris during college. Second stop? WORLD’S EDGE, putting all those things I learned in all those science classes into fiction (superstring theory and genetics, primarily). Next stop? Well, dream. Wish. Whatever you want to call it. I’m dedicated. I’ll make this happen. Because I’D RATHER BE A PUBLISHED AUTHOR THAN BE A LOTTERY WINNER. Got that? Okay, good.