bookfraud

Somebody on this blog asked me what I did for a living, and speculated that I am a dentist. Not so. I probably would have been an evil (not to mention incompetent) dentist — not a torturer, more like a nitrous oxide junkie who tries to fool around with the dental hygenist.

I am told that there are writers who do this full time — write fiction, that is — but the vast majority of us slaves to the keyboard must toil away at a “real job” in the “real world.”

One of the more helpful things I learned in graduate school came in the form of a two-hour seminar. A few of the school’s creative writing teachers were to give us pointers about how to make a living and still write. The general theme was “get a job that gives you a lot of time to write, like a security guard” or “don’t worry about money – that will take care of itself.” (The latter, sadly, is a direct quote from a poetry teacher who told us a story about how he was broke and then an N.E.A. grant fell from the sky, and it’s like, man you got to do your art first! Like dude! Then I found out he had a major-league sugar momma).

So I learned not to pay attention to anything these jokers had to say about earning a living.

In an informal survey taken in the recesses of my brain, here’s the most common ways writers earn their way:

1. Teacher (Creative Writing)

2. Journalist/Copyeditor

3. Administrator/Manager (Often at a college)

4. Temp

5. Pizza Delivery/Food Delivery/Internet Identity Thief

I have worked at three of these jobs. You can guess which ones.

Those are typical jobs. Here are others that give you material comfort and time to write:

1. Parents are loaded/Trust fund of the century

2. Invested in Cisco back in ‘91/Had a feeling and bet the farm on Buster Douglas

3. Sold first child, put second up for auction

Other jobs, which also allow for some material comfort and lots of time:

1. Unemployed Member of the Proletariat With Great Pay & Benefits (Europe only)

2. Evil Lawyer/Disgraced Executive With $100 Million/Arms Dealer

3. License plate maker. Without a doubt, leaves you with the most time.

The best situation, of course, is that you’re paid for your semi-incoherent scribbling in fiction. But even those lucky few are rare: most full-time fiction writers dabble in magazine writing (good $, maintain integrity), screenwriting (awesome $, lose integrity), and criticism (crapola $, huge amounts of integrity, but still crapola $). You really only get to be a full-time critic after you’ve published a book, not before you write one, unless your name is Dale Peck or James Walcott or James Wood and your fame as a critic propels your fiction efforts.

I am counting on this blog to do the same for me. It’s a long shot, but so was Buster Douglas.

Last Sunday, full of caffeine, I was all ready to blog. Like a maniac! I was going to write a brilliant reply to the NYT Book Review’s “Under 40″ influences piece, which would outline writer jealousy (from a 40-year-old whose literary influences are of interest to nobody), and why it’s often fruitless to ask a writer about his or her literary influences — after all, the fights I endured with seventh-grade bullies have influenced my writing as much as Dickens.

But instead I had to check out the latest fortunes of the Cubs, another reason to hate Bush, what’s up with Jerry “The King” Lawler, and put more music on my iPod. Suddenly it was a week later and really no point in telling the world why I’m not jealous of Jonathan Safran Foer, not that the world was dying to hear of it.

The one deep comment I have is that bad writers have influenced me as much as good ones. I’ve learned how not to write from their crappy prose. Also, bad writers are great inspirations. If your average hack can be successful, it follows an unrecognized genius like myself will be as well.

And it is true that the jealousy thing never dies. But the older I get, the harder it is for me to be jealous. Wife actually read with one of the writers interviewed for the Times piece, who was a gracious, genuinely nice person. Just a kid, if I want to think about it in those terms, impossible to dislike. (Wife and other reader were asked who their literary influences are, and I can’t remember what they said; Wife mentioned a Canadian writer, at which point I tuned out.)

There’s the aging writer stereotype, who, embittered by failure, becomes drunk with resentment against young ‘uns who are making millions and are hailed as real geniuses, who aregeniuses, who rightly have all the fame and fortune he should have. That is me on bad days, even numbered Mondays, and when I read about huge book deals for novices (celebrities). Less and less, though, and I wonder if makes me a better writer or that I just don’t give a shit anymore.

Discuss.

An article in the New York Times details our secret sides, the alternate personalities we create in response to trauma or to hide unsavory behavior. Family men (and it does seem to be mostly men) by all appearances, but with second wives, addiction to coke, frequent flyer points at the local brothel. Typical stuff.

I also have a secret life that involves hookers and heroin. (If it were only that interesting.) No, my secret life is as writer. Like an addiction, you could argue that writing is destroying me, that it is a compulsion that has no ultimate reward; it serves an escape from ordinary boredom and unpleasantness. If insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting a different result, then writing — with its cycle of toil, rejection, sometime reward, and toil again — fits the bill.

As with any compulsive behavior, I keep this secret hidden from many. Primarily, people in two groups: my work colleagues, and acquaintences who don’t write. The former is an easy call, as my full-time job is not the place to parade such hobbies or ambitions, lest they interfere with my stated duty to the company. Paranoid, perhaps, but daddy’s gotta earn some bread and he don’t like taking chances. Just like an alcoholic who doesn’t drink at work.

Civilians are a different matter. It might be condescending not to detail my writing inner life to these folks, but hey! When you tell someone you write fiction in any capacity, the next question is, inevitably: “Have you published a book?” And when you tell them no, you haven’t, or no, but publishers are considering it, it is greeted with the incoherent nod or self-protective smile of the unimpressed.

My first employment following college was decidedly boring, and at parties and such, to impress people, I would say, “I work at this crappy job, but I’m working on a novel.” And every subsequent time I would meet these same people, I would hear the same questions: “So, have you published your novel yet?” or “How’s the novel going?” or “Can I read your novel?” and before I could excuse myself to get more beer and Doritos, I had to answer, “Uh, I’m not finished. It’s going shitty. I’m a shitty writer. Go away.”

Other writers tell me tales of similar woe. Non-writers just don’t get it. Then again, they’re not insane.

A friend of Wife just turned 33. It was an anniversary they refer to as the “Jesus year.” Christ lived until age 33, and we know what happened then.

Another King, Elvis Presley, would have turned 70 today. Blows the mind. Elvis died at age 42, though the paramedics didn’t recognize him, such was the state of the bloated and drug-addled man (another story). It scares me to think that I am closer to my Elvis Year than my Jesus Year, and have little printed material to show for it. What if I turn 42, and die of a massive heart attack brought on by constipation and years of prescription drug abuse? Who would remember me as a writer? Nobody — a respectful obit would call me an “aspiring writer”; an unkindly obit would say “failed novelist.” No Graceland or religion named after me.

Although I have a literary agent who is hawking my novel, like most writers I harbor constant doubt, a trait that Jesus and Elvis seemed never to suffer. I consider myself fortunate to have an agent, never mind the fact mine is diligent, smart, and seasoned. But you start to wonder if the novel doesn’t sell, why bother? How much rejection can one person take? I could be spending my time in fruitful, productive activities. Volunteering, learning a new hobby, reading for the hell of it. I could also watch more “Most Extreme Elimination Challenge” on Spike TV.

Writing short fiction — the traditional proving ground for aspiring novelists — has never been a favorite preoccupation of mine, and I have applied myself to the sale of my short stories with less-than-stellar industriousness. (Wife says I’m just being a pessimist, and I can’t argue with her). But I don’t see myself cranking out short stories and trying to publish them if novel doesn’t sell.

It would be easy for me to just give it up, and perhaps, as you read this, you’re saying, ‘Give it up already! I’m tired of your middle-aged whining! Who gives a rat’s ass if you publish’ You live a perfectly happy life, stop acting as if ’success’ is an entitlement!” (Certainly how I would feel reading me.)

It’s not so simple. Like I said below, a writer is someone who does the things writers do, however unpleasant or difficult they may are. Writing is a compulsion. I am always going to be scribbling on my notepad, whining on some blog, cranking out pages on the computer. If you have a story to tell and it feels as if you will die unless you get it on paper, no amount of failure will stop you from getting up off the dirt, and writing again.

I still may go to that damn AWP conference, because I know it will change my life! Plus, there are some amazing street drugs in Vancouver.

In response to an earlier post, Peter makes an interesting comment about the “professionalization” of writing fiction.” It’s not the things one does to get published that seems to bother him, but rather the fact these steps have been packaged and sold, no different than Anthony Robbins hawking Personal Power or your typical infomercial for a ButtMaster or Robo Griller. You get an MFA, you go to conferences, you buy How To books, all of which tell you to get an MFA, go to a conference, and buy more How To books.

I look around the house and see books “on writing” that I have accumulated. There are plenty of Poets and Writers Markets collecting dust; I have a few agent guides. Between the two of us, Wife and I have gone to four conferences and have two MFAs in creative writing. Yeah, we’ve spent the dough, sat through the classes, highlighted magazines we thinkhopepray will publish our work. You could say that I’ve tried to “professionalize” my writing. OK, I admit it (I also have looked at a porn web site).

But, to disagree with Peter, you cannot “become” a writer simply by taking classes or attending conferences or sucking up to the right person. The problem is that after all your professionalization, you still have to write. Most of my time is spent staring at the computer screen or hammering away on a adrenalin roll, agonizing over a prepositional phrase or having a Eureka moment about a character. Classes can tell you what’s good about your writing, but they can’t write for you.

You can proclaim that you’re a Writer, or you can do the things writers do, which are time-consuming, difficult, and often unpleasant.

When I was in my twenties, stubborn and unwilling to change my Obviously Brilliant Writing, I felt as if nobody was accepting my work because I was living in a small city, working at a loser job, and not part of the Club. It was like C.S. Lewis’s “The Inner Ring,” to which a finite number of people — far smarter, more talented, and cooler than me — had access.

Of course, that was not the problem. Nor was it entirely the poor quality of my work. The issue was that I was isolated, both physically and mentally, and it was only when I broke out of this isolation did my writing became something worthwhile. Many writers don’t necessarily need to break out of isolation, but I did, and it is what the “professionalization” of writing ultimately did for me. It provided readers, critics, contacts, and, yes, friends. And, as Mr. Lewis says, friendship causes perhaps half the happiness in the world, and no Inner Ring can ever have it.

I don’t know what the hell that had to do with anything, but it sounded good.

Last evening, as I was trying to enjoy the sublime pleasures of the WWE, Wife dropped a pile of papers beside me — the AWP conference guide.

This was a transparent ploy by brilliant & loving Wife to motivate me. My novel has been making the rounds at publishers, with the responses ranging from “We loved this, but it’s not for us” to “This sucks, committ suicide.” Given my predisposition to depression, the process has not done my spirits well (despite the fact I have been told on several occasions my experience so far is “par” for the course. Par is average, buddy.).

I had been rewriting short stories earlier in the evening, and, carefully and rationally evaluating said stories, I decided that everything I set to paper was garbage, my ideas were garbage, I was garbage, etc. Thus, pro wrestling instead of amateur writing. (Beats drugs).

Wife had pushed me to go to a conference a few years ago when I was in similar emotional straits. She told me it would provide motivation and contacts, both of which I sorely needed. I bitched and moaned and finally went. Of course, she was right. I met others who have helped my modest career, writhers who have proven to be worthy readers, and have been generous to a fault with their time and encouragement. It was natural that she would try to get me to go to AWP.

“Wife,” I said, “can’t you see I’m watching the full-tilt Chris Jerico-Triple H epic battle unfolding on television before me?”

“Just trying to help,” she said. (Wife & friends will take AWP by storm.)

I eventually reviewed AWP conference materials and noticed that conference sessions break down into roughly three categories. Further investigation confirmed my earlier impressions:

1. We Are Writers, With a Capital W

How Do You Tell a Story No One Wants to Hear?

The Uses of Science in Contemporary Fiction and Poetry

The American Sonnet

Jazzing the Muse (about “globalizing the imagination”)

What We Write About When We Write About Love: Women on Love



2. We Are Writers, We Are Teachers, We Are the World

The Professional Writer as Teacher

Evaluating Creativity in Public Schools

Teaching Fiction Through Genre Crossing

Black British Writing in Contemporary Fiction

Growing the Undergraduate Creative Writing Program

3. We Are Writers, Show Us the Bloody Money

Secrets to Nonfiction Book Proposals

Can’t Find a Teaching Job? Try Going to Prison

What Are Editors Looking For?

When Good Submissions Go Bad

Legal Issues Every Writer Should Know

Finding and Working With an Agent



Plus plenty of sessions devoted to readings.

This is all fine and good. I know a couple of people on these panels, and they are terrific writers who will grant sage advice. There are many other writers whose work I respect, and I don’t begrudge anybody or anything here. Really.

But it still doesn’t answer my question of the day before: how do introverts with semi-retarded social skills make contacts that can help them publish? In other words, what’s in it for me?

I still may go.

At brunch with a non-writing friend, Wife & I waxed non-poetic about the fiction-writing business. Eventually, the topic turned to schmoozing. “You don’t look like you’d be good at that,” he said to me.

“Well, duh,” I snarled back. That’s why so many of us write fiction — we grew up as outcasts and crawled into worlds of our own imagining. Prom queens and high school quarterbacks usually make lousy novelists and putrid poets.

Wife & friends will attend the AWP conference in Vancouver, in April. They’re looking at it as a schmooze fest, for the most part. That’s one thing they don’t teach you in MFA programs or in “How to Write and Publish”-type books: like in every other business, contacts can make or break your career. Extremely talented writers can fail because they’re on permanent nerd patrol or they just simply don’t know how to make contacts; conversely, plenty of hacks have won fame & fortune due to their people skills.

Make nice with an established writer, sidle up to the right agent, wink and nod with an editor: these are the skills that can launch your career. For every person who gets published in The Paris Review or Harper’s over the transom (and they are almost non-existent), a billion stories collect dust for want of a decent introduction.

Ever been to Central Park, seen the statues of the Bard, Schiller, Burns…and Fitz-Green Halleck? “[Halleck] definitely had powerful, wealthy and influential friends, which might shed some light on the obscure reasoning for his bronze immortality,” according to the CentralPark 2000 database.

This is how the world works, and I shouldn’t bitch. It’s just easier to blame conspiracies for my failures.