We Know Why We Write...Now Why Do We Publish?

My incredibly dorky phone

Like a lot of people these days, I have a smart phone.  One of the many benefits to owning it is being able to check my email, Facebook, etc., any time of the day.  I can look up movie times, place a library hold, or post pictures of my kids doing crazy things in real time.  There's really only one drawback to owning a smart phone: I can check my email, Facebook, etc. ANY TIME OF THE DAY.  It's not usually an issue.  I'm not one of those obsessive Internet junkies who spends all my time trolling forums or creating memes.  I don't even have to check in with my apps, because they are all set to alert me if I get any incoming messages.  Convenient, right?  Except when I am waiting for an answer to a query.

Yesterday, I sent off my first submission in two years.  As a result, I have checked my email no less than fifty times.  Possibly more.  Which is kind of hilarious, considering I just posted about dealing with rejection two weeks ago.  The thing is, I'm not afraid of being rejected.  I've had rejections in the past, and I survived.  I think what I'm really afraid of is being accepted.  The thought of being published--and the expectations my family and friends would have of me after that--makes me shake in my boots.  (Okay, fine, slippers.)

I think there is a second factor causing me to eye my phone nervously once every ten minutes.  I have always said I'd never be able to write a) short stories and b) horror.  I am awful at limiting the plot of a story, and more times than not, my short story idea hits 40,000 words before I realize what's happening.  At that point I usually shrug and forge ahead.  It doesn't really matter if I'm writing a short story or novel.  As long as I'm enjoying it, I'm happy.

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The horror genre is another matter.  I've read my share of Stephen King, H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allen Poe.  I love Mary Shelley.  I own a couple of Clive Barker books and they are in my TBR pile.  I love classic horror or a well-written contemporary piece.  But something has happened in the last twenty or thirty years.  Cinema has grossly distorted the entire genre to be something akin to the snuff film.  You can't watch an R rated movie these days without encountering too much sex and not enough plot.  Glorified, goreified porn.  And maybe that's okay with some people, but that's not what horror is about for me.  Unfortunately, books have followed where Hollywood is leading, and I've given horror a wide berth for the last few years.

Then, at the beginning of the month, I had an idea.  I'm not going into it here because it is horror, after all, and isn't suitable for polite company.  Let's just say it was a persistent idea, and eventually I got to the point that I couldn't ignore it.  I sat down to write, and when I finished, I realized that this is the sort of horror story I want to read.  It just so happened that a local magazine was looking for stories for their Halloween edition, so I screwed up my courage and sent it in.

Which brings us up to the present.  The question pressing on me now is, "What do I do if they like it?  What if my family wants to read it?"  I think my dad would be fine.  He'd buy extra copies and force his co-workers to read it, too.  My mom, however, would probably be horrified.

Which is kind of the reaction I was going for, though I'd like to avoid that awkward conversation I'd be stuck having about "writing things my grandparents can't read."

I guess my real question this week isn't "Why do I want to write?"  It's more along the lines of, "Why do I want to publish?"  I thought I understood, but this panic over submitting has forced me to reevaluate the question.  While I work on that, let me ask you:

What's your reason for seeking publication?