Image by David Fraiz.

February 2008 brought me to a new personal milestone: I had an article published in an honest-to-goodness magazine. With pages. And paper!

My article, “Toastmasters in Rural Areas”, was published in Toastmaster magazine in their February 2008 issue (the downside is that the magazine is only available to Toastmasters members, but at least there are over 200,000 of us…)

It was a long road to get to this milestone, probably much longer than it needed to be. At the same time, there are a few valuable lessons from this experience for me to share with you.

Almost… but not quite

The last time that I came close to getting published in a magazine was in 1995. The periodical in question was a short-lived Canadian publication called Onset. I worked hard on that article (about career prospects in the telecommunications industry), only to have it pulled and dumped before the magazine went to press. I didn’t do much non-business writing for ten years following that. I have to admit I was rather crushed when I was told that the story wouldn’t run, especially at a time when I was looking at changing careers.

When you experience a disappointment like this, you tend to wonder whether one of two things happened:

1. Did random circumstance screw up this opportunity?
2. Was this event the result of destiny or planning by unseen forces?

It’s tempting to think that 2. was the reason why I didn’t get published in 1995. I could think “Gee, the stars and planets weren’t in proper alignment,” or “God didn’t want me to get published”, or “Maybe I broke the Law of Attraction somehow,” or…

But I highly doubt those were the reasons. It probably was a random collection of events that led me to where I was. Nonetheless, I didn’t push ahead any further with writing. It’s quite possible that I wasn’t ready at that moment, regardless of whether or not fate was involved.

Quitting… to do other important stuff

The main reason why I gave up on the writing dream was to focus on things like career and family. Quite honestly, it was the best thing that I could have done at the time, because that decision put me on the path to marriage, family, and career advancement. You tend to learn a heck of a lot about life by following this path.

So why am I messing around with writing again?

Put simply, things change.

Years of neglecting my creative side caused frustration and desire to build up to the point where I had to try again. It was time to resume climbing up Maslow’s hierarchy.  I started with fiction writing, but found that it wasn’t quite gelling for me. I blundered into user generated content sites like Helium and Triond and from there to social media to blogging and… well, we’ll see where this winds up.

Get a life (I mean hobby!)

This time around, my hobby led to my article. I joined Toastmasters in early 2005 as a way to get back in touch with my creative side. Since Toastmasters was very goal and acheivement oriented, it gave me some objectives to sink my teeth into. I earned the first two Toastmasters communication certification, became part of my club executive, and generally learned a lot about Toastmasters while meeting a number of great people. This experience gave me the raw material to create the article and, after a fair amount of work, it was published.

It did take nine months from start to finish, including one major rewrite, but the article did get published.

I’ll tell you, there’s nothing like seeing your first article in print. Some of you probably know what that’s like, but if you don’t… it’s like winning the best award ever. My heart lifted and I grinned like a fool for at least fifteen minutes (which is a LONG time for me).

Lessons learned

1. Subject matter experience is a huge advantage: I probably couldn’t have written that article without my Toastmasters experience. At the very least, it would have been much harder to research and write the article without being a member of Toastmasters. Writing about what you know is clearly a smart thing to do.

2. Membership has its rewards: Toastmasters membership gave me an automatic advantage over anyone who wasn’t a member. Membership automatically conveyed a certain amount of authority and credibility.

3. Find the right outlet: Toastmasters is very receptive to articles about Toastmasters! The article wouldn’t have worked for Rolling Stone, Wired, or Newsweek because Toastmasters doesn’t tend to have the mass appeal of politics, current events, technology, or pop culture.

4. It’s never too late to try: there’s no doubt that I did quit writing for many years. However, the dream never died. If anything, I’m a better writer today because of the knowledge and experience that I’ve gained in the past 13 years.

5. Don’t be afraid to try again: I never completely abandoned the idea of getting published, despite my previous failure and my “break”.

In conclusion

Generally speaking, I don’t recommend waiting 13 years to try something a second time. At the same time, don’t let the passage of time discourage you, no matter how long it seems. Just look at the people who successfully graduate from educational programs later in life! What about anyone who has the guts to try something new and different long past the time when common wisdom says it makes sense?

If there’s something that you want to do badly, but you’ve never had the courage to try, don’t let time scare you away. If you have the capability and the drive to pursue a milestone that you are theoretically capable of doing, then try it! Don’t worry about the consequences of failure; worry about the consequences of never trying.