Honesty about success, or lack thereof, is difficult. On some primal level, we want everyone else (family, friends, coworkers, followers) to have the perception that we have it all figured out; that things couldn’t be better in our personal and professional lives. This persona or public avatar, my friends, is an absolute farce. I’ve come to realize that we are all a little lost and a little broken, but maybe for the writer to a slightly greater degree.

Over time, both rejection and success have taught me that the same attributes that make a great writer are also the very qualities that cause self-questioning, driving them to the brink of depression. Writers feel. They carry a greater acknowledgement of the world around them. They notice things with nauseating detail and are greatly affected by them. So much so that writing can become almost a bulimic-like purge. Its later in the process that creativity fills in the gaps with editing and revision. The not so sexy, but necessary, part of the craft.  All this work to weave the piece into a digestible form, where the reader can decipher all the author’s chaos and madness.

As a writer, and more specifically a wine and spirits writer, I have continuously questioned my ability. Throughout the years, my confidence has waxed and waned. When I first was asked to write a wine column for our “local” paper (and news website), I was elated. The feeling of euphoria, unfortunately, did not last long before I found myself yearning for more. One would think that adding a second monthly column for another outlet would quench the thirst but, it only further fueled the desire to expand my writing.

Juggling two monthly columns gave me the confidence to attempt reaching out to multiple periodicals and trade magazines. After all, some of those supposed wine and spirits writers I’ve met on press trips, those who are writing for multiple different magazines, knew nothing about the beverages they were touting.

In all fairness, this was obviously an overly simplistic view of the wine and spirits writing industry as I have multiple subscriptions to trade periodicals that are written by knowledgeable and talented writers. There are, however, a large percentage of journalists that produce stories, content pieces, and copy on a subject they know very little about.

So, I gained some letters after my name, real wine education type letters, because that was going to open doors and show them I was different, right? In case you missed the well-timed strategy of a rhetorical question, the answer was an emphatic, “NO.”

Attempting to write for periodicals and trade magazines proved more difficult than I ever anticipated. Reaching out with a blind email to their “info@” address, I determined, was not the best way to get myself noticed. I then decided to use the old adage of “It’s not what you know, but who you know.”

The mentor-ish discussions with some established wine writers like Dave DeSimone (In the Wine Cellar) and Ray Isle (Food and Wine Magazine) have proven helpful and inspiring, but not led to any published pieces. The latest Wine Writers’ Symposium provided a myriad of takeaways along with some contacts and additional mentors. I am hoping to continue attending these industry events, developing relationships and reading others work to help develop my own writing and voice.

Why do I continue? Why do I punish myself and attempt to feed that hunger to get my work out there? I relate it all to the motif of being an inept golfer. All the bad shots you hit in a round are frustrating and tempt capitulation to those whispering demons to just quit. It’s that one really good shot, no matter how infrequent, that rekindles hope and keeps you coming back. In the interim, I will embrace both my successes and, to a larger extent, my failures all while walking the tightrope of emotions and looking for that one perfect shot.