Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

I have written for over sixty years. Poems, essays, children’s stories, full blown books. There are files in cabinets and files on various computers to document this statement. But considering my output, my publishing success has been minimal.

No longer.

Does that mean some agent has optioned all my work, and I’m going to be famous? Hardly. Does it mean I’m retiring from the written word? Absolutely not! What it means is that I’m going to take my work into my own hands and publish it on my website under a new category titled “Potpourri.”

I know what it takes these days to actually get published. You need a platform; you need to be on Facebook and Twitter; you need to accommodate agents’ demands. All this takes time from the act of writing. And it doesn’t guarantee success either.

So I’ve decided to be my own publisher. Under “Potpourri,” which will debut in February, I plan to share works of a longer nature than “Ten Minutes to Write, Less Time to Read.” They are works that have been seriously edited, not like the off-the-cuff blog I try to write regularly.

It does fly in the face of conventional wisdom, and I don’t know where it will lead. But I think I’ll find pleasure in sharing my writing – good, bad, or ugly – without having to grovel to do it. More on this to come.