Archive for March, 2010

When disturbing times like these creep up, people pretty much let you know how they feel. Some make signs, attend meetings, and shout; others find an organization they identify with and work like Trojans, and many just get mad. A lot of people commit their feelings to paper–or a word processor screen. I’m afraid I’m one of those, along with frustrated legions.
And therein lies our collective problem; there’s just too much trying to make it out in our category. Listen to those political commentators on TV, hawking their books. They know. You’ve got to build some sort of interest in what you’ve written or you’re sunk, but what do fiction writers do? They’re like flowers in a massive field, hoping a bee will find them…and tell a bunch of other bees.
And never forget; this is a business. It’s the publishing industry’s reason for being; they want to sell books and make money. As a citizen in a capitalistic country, I forgive them, but the art and grace of it all is slowly suffocating. Publishers will enthusiastically print the fiftieth new novel of a proven, money-making author, but, you know, a lot of those had to face our same bleak reality when they finished their first one.
Any writer has heard too many stories not to understand: popular and successful authors who, but for luck or the grace of God, would never have been published. The funny thing is nobody can tell with certainty which works of fiction will take off and which will wither and fade. An even larger unanswerable question is which are actually art?
Since the word art is virtually impossible to define, it’s understandable. I guess, in the end, our culture decides what it is for us, and like salmon eggs, some works develop and fulfill their destiny, some never make it and die, and others are consumed by the process before they ever get a chance to do anything at all.
The laws of nature are living and active in our claustrophobic little world. Fish seem comfortable with it. They know they can’t change the way things are, but it’s been a shock to me. Okay, I get it, Gods of Literature. I’ll stand with my fellow daffodils, looking as beautiful and inviting as I can and hoping someday, somehow, I attract an inquisitive and intelligent bee who has a lot of friends.

I’ve written a novel…big deal! Everybodyt’s aunt’s cousin’s son-in-law’s friend’s brother has, but lately I’ve been tormented by the fact that not a lot of people seem to want to read mine. I’ll never find out what the world thinks or whether it believes I have any talent, but I have to confess. The thought that it might decide I’m a hack hurts a little–a big little; I sweated bullets over that thing. Trudging through the dust of my would-be literary career, I’ve decided almost nobody has a shot at writing what everybody is looking for these days, the next great American novel–it’s simply too hard to get it out there, and for a first novel almost impossible. Oh, yes, I know a few lucky ones get through, but they shouldn’t misplace their lucky charms. The holes in the winnowing basket are so large, almost everything falls through.
Disgraced celebrites, faded sports figures, and iffy politicians write three words or so, turn them over to a ghost, ultimately publish, and people buy gazillions of copies and eagerly watch the “author” giggling in front of a blue background on TV. Things weren’t like that in the old days. People wrote because they had to, and when they finally left their writing desks, they left a mountain of words, often wonderful words. I only have a small hill so far, but I’m just a beginner.
A “first-time-author,” a derogatory term at best, comes roaring into the swamp, where he finds icebound obstacles in his path. He tries to work his way through, but if he ever got a clear view he’d see them all the way to the horizon, just waiting to block his efforts until he gives up, collapses from exhaustion, or dies, maybe all three at once.
There are little breadcrumbs along the trail–keep at it, don’t give up, get a website, don’t forget the book clubs, and the biggest of all, “I remember a guy like you. His book sold millions of copies and was made into a movie.”
Sounds kind of naive, doesn’t it? It is, and I should have seen through it from the start, but I wasn’t looking at the ground. I was looking much too high…but now, I know. It’s all basically camouflage. When we look at the stars, we only blind ourselves to the dirty, painful reality lying below. It almost crushed me, until one day after endless agonizing, I thought about Emily, the wisest of all our company.
She wrote for herself…and nobody else. She never knocked on doors, never emailed a diffident literary agent, never worked to follow trite, threadbare recommendations, never worried about whether she would be published; SHE WROTE, and she has become my newest patron saint, right up there next to Mary Magdelene and John Kennedy Toole.
Some say Mary was an author, too, and like the rest of us, she was ignored. Actually, it’s worse in her case. It took her two thousand years to reclaim her status as a pious woman and not a prostitute. And we think we have problems?
Poor John let the system kill him, but don’t worry, John, we understand better than you think. You shouldn’t have let it happen; they aren’t worth it–not for one second or one penny in royalties. God knows what you might have written next, but you never got the chance. A Confederacy of Dunces is your one-and-only. You should have looked to Emily, but you got all tangled up in the foolishness. We enjoyed your novel. For good measure, it won a Pulitzer Prize, but you’re gone now and with Emily. I hope you still exist somewhere, and I hope even more you know how much everybody loved your work.
Emily wrote what she saw and felt, which is what all of us try to do, but she did it in the most glorious language imaginable. So let her be our shepherdess. We shouldn’t worry about whether what we write will sell, but whether it’s worth a damn from the get-go. Lay it out there the way you think it should be. Someday, somebody may read what you’ve written and find something in it he or she needs. Find a day-job, other ways to put bread on the table, and write as often as you can.
Emily didn’t give a whit about success, and neither should we. Actually, w wasn’t the letter I wanted to use when I wrote the word, whit, but you know, the prissy establishment doesn’t share my enthusiasm for the alternative. Emily probably doesn’t either.