Shameless self-aggrandizement department:
By the time you read this, dear reader, The Chas will have observed a major milestone. To wit: the big 8-0.
How he got to this point in his life, he cannot say. The big 8-0 seemed to have sneaked up on him while his attention was focused on other matters, such as trying to keep his shoelaces tied or wondering why the light goes out when the refrigerator door closes. You may be thinking right now that he has become a doddering, old fool. Not so! He is simply absent-minded, which could happen to anyone. Albert Einstein was often absent-minded, and I haven’t heard anyone call him a doddering, old fool.
I could devote this essay to my life experiences up to now, but an essay on Life, the Universe, and Everything (you Monty Python fans will understand what that’s all about) will have to wait a while. Instead, I will relate my writing career in an orgy of self-aggrandizement.
My writing career had its roots in the 1950s during my teenage years, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, away. I took to reading avidly the Aurora Beacon-News, or the “Be-Confused,” as it was popularly called then. My attention gravitated to the editorial page because I was curious about what others were thinking about Life, the Universe, and Everything. Soon, I discovered Oke Pamp, a resident of Batavia, who wrote letters-to-the-editor at least twice a month. Pamp was contentious, controversial, and curmudgeonly, and this impressionable lad couldn’t get enough of him. Eventually, I began to wish I could write like Oke Pamp.
In June 1966, my wish came true. I submitted a letter-to-the-editor (on religion, would you believe?), and it was printed. I was encouraged to write more letters, and they were printed. If ye olde editor had realized what a Frankenstein monster he had unleashed upon an unsuspecting readership, he might have deep-sixed that original letter. I was unstoppable. I took a lot of heat from intellectually-challenged individuals, but I persevered. By the time I severed ties with the B-N, I had 250 letters under my belt.
One other venue I had with the B-N was the “Common Sense” feature. It was a collection of eight Aurora area writers in rotation who were free to write about whatever they wanted Most of them were content to wander down Memory Lane. Not The Chas, however! He was still on his soapbox, orating like nobody’s business. And he actually got paid for venting his spleen. His output numbered 43, and he was allowed 750 words, more than twice the length of a letter-to-the-editor.
In 2002, the Copley Press, and all of its newspapers, was bought by the Hollinger Group, a media conglomerate with its headquarters in Detroit. The new management wanted fresh blood for its opinion page; “Common Sense” was subsequently dropped, and any letters I wrote found their way into File 13. I did not vent my spleen for the next nine years.
Instead, I turned to fiction writing. Alert! Shameless self-promotion ahead!
In the 1970s, I had tried my hand at writing short stories, mostly science fiction, and had acquired a splendid assortment of rejection slips (RS). In the 1980s, I tried my hand at writing novels and accrued additions to the RS pile. In the 2000s, I discovered self-publishing, and I began pulling dusty old manuscripts off the closet shelf where they had been moldering. My first published novel appeared in 2005.
I have 11 titles under my belt, seven science fiction, one science fiction/horror, one fantasy, and two satires of Aurora, and am working on numbers 12 and 13. I have used my real name for the satires and the pen name “Charlton Clayes” for the rest. I am listed on all the major on-line book sellers. One of my titles, a SF/horror, “Whispers in the Mind”, actually won an award in 2013 in a writing competition. Have you had enough shameless self-promotion, dear reader?
In 2010, I was encouraged by two acquaintances to write for The Voice, but I was reluctant to jump into opinion-writing again. My friends kept after me, and I was encouraged by the publisher, whose name I seemed to have forgotten. Thus, I dipped my toe into the editorial waters again in April 2011, and I have never looked back. This essay is number 240, and there will be many more to come.
Just a wicked thought. (Heh-heh-heh!)