Have you ever published anything?

I write and then bin much like Mark Twain. I write for my own pleasure unfortunately writing now is a massive money earner for third party interests. Agent, editor, publisher, few thousand dollars or quid "might" get you published. I take in everything in that Stephen King said in his book about "On Writing" and he said that those mentioned are a necessary evil. How true. Must be millions of good stories laying in wastepaper bins because the writer can't afford the extortionate payments to get published. Go the competition route and it is the same, magazines need the palms crossed with silver too. Ho-hum.