Posts Tagged ‘Emily Dickinson’

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.