Is Publishing Dead (at least, for me)?

[Photo Credit: Ed Robertson for Unsplash]

I have been processing my recent medical journey by writing about it. Things can seem a lot clearer, and also a lot funnier, from a distance. I write something almost every day, so that distance is not always very great. Sometimes, I am forced to let up a bit so that the next thing can actually happen, and I can then write about it.

I'm four months into this journey and I've written, as it turns out, a chapter a month, each about 5000 words in length. I am well on my way to having the basis for a book. But this raises a dilemma for me. Do I wait to complete the whole thing, then submit it to a conventional publisher, wait for them to judge it worthy, or not, and then wait again while it's put into the lineup for the following year? I could be dead by the time it comes out. Literally. Plus, traditional publishers have not shown much interest so far in what I have to say, calling it "niche" or "religious," even while admitting, as one did, that my writing was "lovely."

Or ... do I begin sharing it with you now, releasing, say, 500-1000 words at a time, bringing you in on my adventures while I am living them, and while I'm able to enjoy your responses, including the personal stories of yours that my story may evoke (which is what I love best)? There would be no release date, no launch, no distribution, no profit, just the story itself rolling out, bit by bit.

Does the immediacy of streaming and of posting make traditional publishing a dinosaur, as satisfying as it would be to hold a book in my hand, to sign it, and then to sell it to you? Besides, I already have a new book coming out soon, a real book, Into the Mystic: Living in a World That's Alive, a follow-up to Talking to Trees.

This is not a rhetorical question, about posting or publishing. I'm really asking. And I'm really asking you! If you have any interest at all in following this journey of mine, would you rather read about it seriatim, online, in real time, or altogether, after the fact, bound in the pages of a book? I would value your opinion about this.

And in the meantime, while I await your responses, I should share with you this update (though it's a bit of a spoiler from the book): that my diagnosis has now been confirmed--AL amyloidosis, a rare, incurable, blood disease that threatens the major organs with protein fibre deposits that thicken those organs, as has already started happening to my heart. This makes my "journey" all the more real as I now prepare to begin my first round of treatments, which includes chemotherapy and steroids and a cocktail of medications I can't even pronounce.

Thanks, as always, for your interest and support. There are times when we need one another. This is one of them.