after reading through the comments, I feel compelled to add this (kind of depressing, sorry) thought: being published (for MOST of us--perhaps not for those who end up with true fame and very good contracts) doesn't change anything. Sure, for a few moments, you feel great. Validated. It's something you've worked hard for and now--here it is! A real, live book! A few people actually buy it (or the journal you were published in or whatever). They congratulate you. You feel like you've entered a club--those who have made it. Look how smart you are! Look how others acknowledge your intellect, your humor, your ability to write! And then.....crickets. Honest to god. It ends. And you are just you again. And no one cares about your book. i can't tell you how many people have asked me what I do and I say, well, I'm mostly a writer, I wrote a couple of novels. And that's.....end of conversation. If i didn't get personal satisfaction from putting pen to paper, I wouldn't do it. Because no one cares if I write or not. My "job" is to enjoy my life. And if that enjoyment comes from writing, then fantastic! But i know that it really doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world if I write or if i don't write. I'm not all that important and no one is waiting for my next book. It's a blast to get published, just like it's a blast to have any sort of success in life. But you are still you. And if you want a career, you have to manage to do it all over again, this time with expectations from others. I'm gonna post this even though maybe i should not. I know how lucky i am to ever have had a book published in the first place. I really do. But like anything, the thrill comes and goes and you are left with yourself again. My personal takeaway is that doing what you love is a great way to live a satisfying life. But it's all in the doing and not in the having done. What was the question again? Sorry, i'm rambling.
Oh Mary! How right you are! Shortly before my 20th high school class reunion, I won the Cosmopolitan magazine short story contest. Of course I sent a press release to the hometown paper. Comes the reunion. A woman comes up to me and says, "Nancy! I read about you in the paper!" I puff up and smile. She says, "You went on a trip or something?" Or something. Oh well. Your post took me back to a funny moment!
Thank you for posting Mary. You're right, most of us remain anonymous most of the time, despite our fifteen minutes of fame. When I tell people I'm a playwright, they always say 'Oh, anything I might have seen?' The honest reply is 'I doubt it.' A friend, a fellow playwright, offered me the great response - 'I don't know; what have you seen?' I think it's why the entertainment industry has so many awards ceremonies. If you lucky enough to win, you have the ecstatic moment of accepting the award and being loved and respected at the same time...for the allotted one minute. Then you have the award on your shelf to polish and stroke in years to come as a reminder of what once was. And you have your published book, a huge achievement, and something that can't be 'unachieved' - you will always have it - it is always there.
Thank you, Tom. I have friends who are screenwriters--their scripts may sell, but are then never made into movies. So I really feel for them! When people ask "oh, anything that i've seen?" they have to explain the way it all works... and that the answer to the question is "no." By that time, the person who asked has fallen asleep. I love that you're a playwright! I'm mid-way through a course in playwriting at the moment, and just wrote a ten-minute one that is super dumb but at least it works as a play. Learning, learning.
and yes, you are right, I'll always have my books on my shelf. I also have the books that other family members have written over the years. In the case of my former father in law: he wrote a couple huge bestsellers in the sixties. His books are old now, no one has heard of them, and he's no longer around to look at his dusty books. Again, the lesson is to do what you do, enjoy the doing, and know that nothing lasts.
I feel this. And I'd add that I keep moving the goalposts. I once said that I'd call myself a writer the day I was paid for it. But then when I got a poem published, I'd remind myself that I wasn't paid much, it was a small print. It didn't count. I had a short story published and I told myself that it wasn't real. It was an audiobook. The editor butchered it.
I've written screenplays. I finally had one optioned. They paid me money. I spent time with the producers scouting locations and talking about revisions. I made several. I felt like this was it -- the cusp of success. But then they got cold feet and didn't move forward.
But as I look back on my life, I see that I've been writing since I was eleven. It's how I express myself. It's the cure to my anxiety. It's the way I process life. Writing and editing as skills have given me a full career in "not writing but close." I've been paid for writing skills for decades. (Cue Harry Chapin's "Taxi")
I'd love to publish a novel. And if I do, I'll probably experience exactly what you've described in the original post. And I'll try to enjoy it as another rite of passage. Maybe.
There is something very Tao and or Buddhist in this; I’m glad you posted it, Mary. All this striving, and for what? Oh, right, because we fell in love with books and authors, and wanted to join the party. But really, most of life is outside of that. You publish a book, but you’re still you. You fall madly in love, but when the endorphins subside, you’re still you. You better be a pretty good version of yourself…and remember to enjoy the sunshine, the birdsong, the child’s smile, the kind word. Oh, and the joy you felt with finally sculpting that perfect line, or hitting that amazing run of chords or notes…
Love your rambles. I was raised to believe that people are either artists or they are not artists, and that it has zero to do with any kind of commercial success.
Stacya- I saw a great flow chart once, showing how to determine if you’re an artist. It starts with a box that contains the words “Make Some Art”. That flows with an arrow to the next box “Is it Good?”. That flows with arrows to 2 options: “Yes” or “No”. Both of those have arrows pointing back to a single box: “Make More Art”. Then the last box says: “Congratulations, You’re an Artist”.
It might make certain people more driven to succeed as an artist if they didn't fit in with their own family, a family full of accountants, or whatever. I don't believe I was born any more creative than anyone else, but our house was filled with art supplies, clay, canvas, paint, colored pencils and paper, and that's what we did all day, along with reading and writing, playing albums, and putting on "shows." I wonder how many kids would consider themselves creative (whether they grow up to get paid to be creative or not) if they had all that stuff piled around.
The creative part was fantastic. Our friends were artists, writers, filmmakers, playwrights, musicians. The practical side of life was lacking. I regret my formal education. My parents didn’t see value in school, so there was an imbalance. Also, we were broke, got evicted a lot...by my teenage years I began to think of living as an artist as a road to poverty and financial ruin.
Thanks. So interesting. I had a friend whose parents were artists too, and she had a similar experience in terms of financial struggle. She also felt that the lack of boundaries was too much for her…
You have mentioned before about your upbringing and i find it just fascinating. What a great message to have received from your parents! (I was raised to believe you grew up, got married and had babies. Full stop. Art was never mentioned or discussed.)
My mother is an artist, and my father was a performer and writer...he wrote some porn on the side under the pen name "Zachary Quill." Back then, they had strong opinions about being an artist that I drifted away from. They didn't think school was important at all, as if you just shot out the womb a fully formed "artist" and then there you are, no training needed. In my opinion, that's kooky talk. I'm so glad I went to college. Most of my friends who are working actors or writers came from families that didn't encourage art at all. It motivates them, perhaps.
Wow. What a singularly interesting upbringing you must have had! Maybe you'll write a memoir one of these days, because it sounds like you've got a lot to write about. Not encouraged to go to college! That's amazing. College was a given in my world.
In my case, i was brought up to believe you shot out of the womb either smart or not smart. For years, i got by on that one--no one ever explained to me that you actually had to study and learn! (And i was never encouraged to study and learn. Just to....get married and make those babies!) (Okay, i'm gonna google Zachary Quill.....)
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Wow. Everything about this. Wow. (I laughed out loud at this: "My mother is still alive, so I’ll say this: Mom, despite your best efforts, I’m a prude.") Oh, my god, do you have an agent? I'm gonna go down the rabbit hole of your blog as soon as i get a chance. Your writing is fantastic--there was no way I was gonna stop reading. Tell me this is a book.
That was great. I like how you call your parents (at least in this post) by their first names. My sister started doing that, and when I caught on I realized, oh, this is a way to establish some necessary distance.
I have trouble sometimes with those ‘graphic’ words also, and therefore retreat into metaphor. But Yiddish words work well for many things; they have the proper music, and also that lovely humorous bent. (Some people I have known use words that are either Sanskrit or Hindi, and seem to tantrically combine the sexual with the sacred, which also makes sense to me.)
Mary- you should always hit 'post.' Your experiences, thoughts and ways of sharing them with the rest of us are terrific. Thanks for those. In case it's interesting, I wanted to add a corollary to this, about being an architect, which is also a career filled with artistic satisfaction and struggle, terror of the blank page and cyclical hits of fame dopamine followed by crickets. Getting our work published (which most of us crave) follows the same patterns you described. One interesting difference is that when people ask what I do and I tell them I'm an architect, half the time they tell me they wished they were one too, or they almost become one, which sort of affirms that they know little of the struggle and view it mostly through the fantasy. They think that because buildings don't fade away (usually) that there might be an eternal stream of recognition and appreciation. Well, most of the time the building lives on and the creator becomes a footnote and we have to just get back to work. Actually we become a footnote that falls below the one for the photographer who took the picture of the building or the artist who made the sculpture in front of the entry. For some reason, those two artistic professions always get credit even though the energy they invested is generally far less than the architect's. Maybe this is similar to a movie based on book? The movie captures the most of the public awareness.
Kurt, first of all, thank you for the support regarding my comments. I've mentioned before that sometimes I worry that I post too much and that perhaps it gets annoying, so hearing this from you is much appreciated.
Your experience as an architect is so interesting! Wow--just something I haven't thought about before, but you're quite right about the similarities. You say it's an interesting difference--that when people ask what you do and you tell them you're an architect, half the time they reply that they wish they could be an architect as well. Well, that's actually not so different! People often tell me that they want to write, are planning to write, have a great idea if they only had time, have a great idea for me to write about, have a great idea and they'd tell me but they're afraid i'll steal it, plan to write a novel as soon as they retire, and on and on. Hey, i think it's great that so many people dream about writing. But it seems to me that many of them believe it will all come easily--the writing and the subsequent success. Who knows--maybe for some of them it will come easily! But I kinda doubt it. (Not everyone reacts this way, of course. Plenty of people know that writing is hard and that it takes a lot of tenacity and time--both to learn and to create.)
i never thought about how a photographer will get credit for a photo of a building, when the architect is most of the time not mentioned! That's wild. In the move/TV world, the writer is credited way down the line. The producer, and especially the director--those names are the big ones. And those are the ones with the big paychecks. The writers get paid the least of anyone! (I'm sure there are people here in Story Club who are in the movie business and who can chime in if I'm off base. But I'm pretty certain I have it right.) It always kills me that the person responsible for the story gets the least respect.
It all comes back to the same thing over and over, right? We're not always going to get credit or understanding. Our names may not be known, ever. We may not get paid enough--or at all. So we've got to enjoy making the things we make, or else find something else to do.
It’s funny, I’ve often wondered if the fact that creative people need to create and express has made us susceptible to being taken advantage of. We are going to make art, regardless. Not trying to whine too much about money here, just observing that by simple logic, the person who conjures up the idea, the alchemist, should really get more recognition, and compensation. It’s puzzling how that is often not the case, except for those at the very top of the heap, the stars. BTW- your description of people telling you you about their writing aspirations makes perfect sense. I only called my experience ‘different’ because you had described people sort of detaching once you tell them you’re a writer. But it makes sense that they would instead share their writing fantasy. Everybody’s got a screenplay they want to share…
I remember when the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" won awards, an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay by Nia Vardalos...the producer, Rita Wilson, held up the award and did all the talking. I remember thinking, wait...shouldn't Nia Vardalos be giving that speech? Instead of standing next to Rita Wilson, silent, smiling...I'm sure she was thrilled, but still. Since it was a stage play first, that Vardalos wrote and starred in? I still don't get it. I'm not saying she was taken advantage of, just noticing that's how it seems to go down. I mean, good for Rita Wilson for having the good sense to find the play and make the film.
Here's a more current example: I just watched a movie on Netflix called "Spiderhead"....For obvious reasons, I was eagerly anticipating the credit for the short story writer who came up with the idea. (Some guy named George something or other...). Well, it took like forever to get to George's name. First came everybody who had money in it and who acted in it. Then came the New Yorker, which published the short story. Eventually George's name showed up, half obscured by the background in the movie at that moment. I was bummed. My hero in all this got sort of dissed, though he may not feel that way since I'm sure it's a gigantic thrill just to see it get made into a movie - now that's some good cocktail party conversation fodder.
Take a look at the back cover of this week's New Yorker. Big ad for Spiderhead. At the top of the ad, in relatively large typeface, it says: "Based on a Short Story from the New Yorker." Doesn't say who wrote that short story! (It does have George's name buried in unreadable font at the bottom of the page.) I understand that you sell your work and then it's out of your hands. But this almost looks like a joke. Based on a short story from this very magazine! But we won't say who wrote it!
The movie actually didn't win any oscars. Nia Vardalos was nominated, though. I think maybe you're remembering the Visionary awards(?) which it seems Rita Wilson won for more or less discovering the play and getting her husband's company to buy it. So you can quit being mad at Rita Wilson!
Not mad, because it's just the way things are. It was a bigger award than that, maybe People's Choice or something? I don't know what the Visionary Awards are. I'm saying yes, cool that Rita Wilson saw the play, liked it, had to the good sense to produce it and get that ball rolling, but it is a living story because: Nia Vardalos. Not mad, just always perplexed by the whole thing. People do take credit for other people's work in various ways, especially in the music and entertainment world.
Gotcha. The detachment is about my books. Then they tell me they want to write, too. It's all fine--it's just nice people attempting to make conversation with me. I'll tell you another one that people say to authors all of the time. The say, "I'm on the waiting list for your book at the library!" And you have to say, oh, that's great! I hope you like the book! When what you really want to say is please purchase the book. It's how I make a living.... Anyway, I feel like I am saying mean things about nice people who are trying their best. I'm sure I say dumb things to people all of the time, too. One of the only things that i'm grateful for when it comes to the pandemic is that i no longer go to parties much, after which i usually come home and have to kick myself for the dumb things I've said or done.
Mary, one of the nice things about SC is getting a chance to know other writers, so I'm perfectly happy to read your posts with the only proviso that Substack makes it hard sometimes to find the damn things. Post away!
I can completely relate with your post. In my career I found myself many times in that place, where the goal always moves and the excitement is short lived, but I thought there is something more about publishing. I must start by saying that I haven’t been published. Everything I write is loved by my friends and family and always rejected by magazines and agents. I have asked myself whether I should stop writing, but I love it, so I won’t. I don’t care about fame, I write under a pseudonym anyway, so I wondered whether I should have stopped sending my material. why should I care about being published? Well, I think because I would like, with my writing, to reach people. Initiate a conversation. Have a place in a community. If nobody reads what I write, my writing has the same function of going for a run, or taking a long bath. It becomes an enjoyable activity, but I wish it to be something more, something with which I can relate to others. I also dream, with my writing to make the world a better place. I wish my writing will comfort, like so many novels have comforted me, have elevated me, and gave me hope, when I felt I had none. Am I naïve?
Your mini short story of 50 words, in 50 words (one of the very first exercises in this forum) made me think for so long about divorce and the longing and fears of families that decompose and recompose. It was so delicate and compassionate. I think it changed me somehow, for the better. I think this is the power of getting published. The trill and the deflation of the achievement, those, are only side effects of getting published, I think….
My goodness, Aurora, what a lovely post. “I wish my writing will comfort, like so many novels have comforted me, have elevated me, and gave me hope, when I felt I had none.” I think a similar feeling was a big part of what set me on this convoluted path, the stories and books that took me to a different, better place, and possibly saved my life more than once. I wanted to pay that forward! It’s frustrating that I remain more or less unpublished, but a few friends have responded to a few of my stories in exactly the way I had hoped for. (Really, more intensely than I had hoped for…) So, don’t give up! (I’m glad you mentioned Mary’s 50/200 piece. Did that ever resonate! The anxiety of it, coupled with the way her lines mirrored one another as they mirrored life. Dynamic.)
I am going to leave you my email and invite you to send anything you might be okay with me reading (and I will reciprocate if you would like.) But no pressure!! I just thought, after reading your post, I would love to read something by you! Keep at it!
Thank you so much, David. The publishing world is a very strange place to me. My feelings towards it change by the day. But yes, I’ll keep on sending things out. With a full time job that has nothing to do with creative writing and a young son to raise, I must say I am not very active, but it’s ok. I have made peace with it.
Isn’t it beautiful when we connect to our friends and family also as writers? I find it very rewarding to see my close ones engage to my works of fiction. You must feel the same when your readers react to your writing. Thank you also for your very generous offer to read something of mine, it is very kind of you.
Yes! The time or two that something I wrote moved someone to joy or tears was some kind of pure bliss. I have a young son also; he just turned four. It’s so mind-bending right now to experience his consciousness become more full by the minute…I just wrote three pages that might actually be half-good. Gladness! Have a great day!!
Thanks David! Ha! So good you were able to write today and that you liked what you wrote. Is it a short story? And do you find time to write regularly? I don’t…
I think it will be a short story. Writing regularly is but a dream right now. I have to squeeze time through a toothpaste tube when my child is asleep or otherwise engaged. But, he will be spending more and more time in school and other activities as time proceeds! But I am trying to be more regular…
Aurora, what a lovely note you have sent me. It means a lot to me, so thank you so much. You should know that I often have no readers for my work either, save for family and friends. Work gets rejected and never sees a larger community of readers. There are times when I no longer feel that i am a writer at all, that I have lost my moment and my momentum. And then I find myself, like you, putting words on paper again. I don't think you are naive and I think it's beautiful that you want to write stories that comfort, elevate, bring hope. We, none of us, have any idea what tomorrow will bring. Keep sending your stories out! You're right that with publishing, after the thrill is gone, the stories may live on and may touch someone's heart. I hadn't really taken that into account and thank you for that notion. Writing is therapy, I tell myself. Even if no one reads my words, I have watched my own brain at work. Watched the paths my thoughts follow. Have found out what I think! So there is always an upside. Writing makes me a better person, I think. I try to hold on to that. Thank you again. This was such a joy to read.
Hi Mary, I’m really glad you liked my message. I think it is beautiful that your writing has this power on strangers, and that it resonates inside their hearts. Even if it’s just a few hearts, even if it is just one.
Thanks also for sharing that you too get rejections… it is a mystery to me why some things are published and some are not, but it’s nice to be on the other side of validation - to write just for the journey.
I too will take a look at your work. My user name is my email. You're welcome to send me anything you want. If there's a context to why you wrote it and what you're trying to do with it, you might include that in a forward to it so I can better understand it. Also, do you just want a read, or a critique? I'm fine either way. Looking forwards...
One of my Korean shows mentioned "The Rule of Ten," which says out of ten people, two will like you, six will be indifferent to you, and two will hate you. You're always going to run across people indifferent to writing. That's fine. It's good to mark them as not worth your time. Just keep looking until you find the ones whose eyes light up and go "Really!?"
There's an old story (I forget which religion it's from) that God created all the creatures of the world so that he could look at his creation through a million different eyes. That's the joy of writing for me, to take a situation, throw all my different characters into it, live it through their eyes, and combine it all together.
I absolutely think you should have posted this Mary! It’s easy to think that external markers that indicate that we’ve ‘made it’ will somehow transform our lives and give us the validation we feel we need or deserve. But achieving these ‘goals’ is so often hollow and when the golden dust of achievement settles around us we are left thinking - is that it? Enduring satisfaction has to come from within. If I can write a beautiful sentence that expresses something true, is that enough to make the work involved in doing so worthwhile? For me the answer is yes although the beautiful sentences are rare sparkles in a sea of mostly muddy mediocrity.
Kate, I gotta say that when I achieved my goals (a published book) it didn't feel hollow. It felt great! And there's still a sense of personal pride I carry in having done what I thought was maybe impossible. But after that....it's back to the blank page. The world is full of people who could care less that i wrote a book. I know once best-selling authors who now receive zero name recognition. This, after years of saying their name and having other people go, oh my god! I read your book!!! Now....nothing. So you gotta be happy with the daily grind and be happy with the writing part, because the rest of it disappears before you know it. (For most.) As you say, "enduring satisfaction has to come from within." True, always.
Ya gotta just keep plugging along. If your work is good, it will endure the test of time. We're still reading Cervantes, Rumi's poetry, and Homer. Good stories live forever, even if their author's don't.
Sigh. Heavy sigh. This is my life struggle. I write this now from my desk at work. Just this morning I sent a message to a friend saying that I hoped this summer I might find my way back to some writing. The absence has been long. I hope it will prove to have been a fruitful sabbatical, but it could just be time away where I grow more and more rusty and feel less and less a writer. Breadwinner. Not sure what I am winning except keeping the ship afloat. It's a ship without a lot of art on the walls. On your recommendation I ordered Tillie Olsen's "Silences". Like her, I have long been a mother who is solely responsible for running the household. It has been about 4 years since I published anything, and over a year since I submitted anything. I take photographs these days as it is art I can make as I go about my day. I dream of retirement. I dream about days when my worry is only that I have the time to write and I am not using it! I yearn for days when I can mark my writing time in hours, not minutes. I want my imagination to dwell in a house as big as the sky. I want to run away with my obsessions and not come home until after the supper dishes are done. This work-life makes all the best bits of me smaller, and I miss them so.
I used to feel this way too. I am now free to do as I please, and yet have not accomplished much. My best work was done when I had little time. As George said, writing is a frame of mind.
KG - I can relate. I have become free to do more of what I please. I thought it would be writing. I love writing. And yet, what I do is…I dunno….delight in life w/o writing much of it down right now. I’m trying to roll with that and see where it leads. I heard Depak Chopra say once that people tell him when they meditate they fall asleep. They want to know why and what the secret is. He says to them, ‘sounds like you’re tired and need to get more sleep first’
Thanks for your honesty Taryn. You articulated a sense of longing that I think many of us can relate to. Whatever minutes it took you to write this, it reached me, a reader. It resonated and I responded. So there you go. You’re a writer, writing, sharing, and reaching a stranger(s) who became moved. I, like many here I assume, rarely feel like it’s enough (time, word count, brilliance…) And yet, little flashes of success. The light gets through.
“I want my imagination to dwell in a house as big as the sky.” I love that. Seems like the chord you struck here resonates with many of us. Maybe with all of us.
You, Taryn, are a writer. Who has just written. You just did it. My life doesn't sound anything like yours, but in writing FROM your heart and TO your readers, you just did the thing that writers do, or anyway the best writers: made me care. That heavy sigh you may be entitled to, this I won't argue, but I hope you're collecting all those heavy sighs, parts of a coming & coherent & heart-grabbing whole they are. In the meantime, read Carver's "Fires" if you haven't already. (Writes Carver: "[T]he greatest single influence on my life, and on my writing. . . has been my two children. [T]here wasn't any area of my life where their heavy and often baleful influence didn't reach." Ouch! No Father of the Year Award there, but notice he says "influence" & thus those story gems of his, driven, in part, spurred by that balefulness. I'm just sayin'.)
Thank you. I really appreciate the support you all are offering me! It has helped immensely, actually. I am glad I decided to go ahead and whine in public!
"Writing is a lovely, life-affirming thing to do, even if the world never rewards us for it, or never rewards us enough to allow us to make it the main thing in our lives. It's a vocation, after all, not a job – and even if we’re lucky enough to have it as our job, it’s still not a job, not really."
What a lovely pair of sentences to read on a Thursday in June. Thank you.
This quote is everything: "...what makes us a writer in the moment is the state of our mind. Are we interested, curious, noticing, changing our view, always changing our view, loving the world, compelled by the beauty of language?"
When everything else in life demands our attention, maybe there's some value to surrendering to it. Life is kind of writing lived out loud and it's all fodder in the end? Even my 14-year-old niece's incessant texts, asking if I can please like her latest TikTok.
Where I struggle most is in that tension-filled space between: "put your pen down and live this moment" and "if you can't carve out time, you'll never make it." Which is where, I suppose, the few-lines-of-prose-as-you're-able work their magic.
Ha! Worthwhile observation. Seems like we could draw a similar diagram to the one in the post with "living life" and "writing about life" as the two extremes.
And maybe the one end of the arc, the writing about life part, becomes writing about imaginary and delightful possibilities, rather than real life, so.... fiction!
As a side note: sometimes the location in which you offer your creativity matters to its perception/reception. My illustrations were often rejected as "too sophisticated" for the children's book market in the USA. But I so enjoyed creating quirky detailed illustrations that I self-published and contented myself with a small but dedicated audience. Then, luckily, my work got picked up by someone in Australia where it now has a larger readership *and* I am able to continue to do my detailed artist bookwork. My work is still rejected in the US as "too sophisticated" - oh well! They love my work in Australia. Sometimes it can be helpful to look for publication/distribution outside the country you live in.
Hi Sue. I’ve just had a quick look at your illustrations online and I think they are wonderful, but then I am an Australian, so I would! Your post reminded me of when my first child was a toddler and I would take him to the library. While I was carefully choosing books I thought were suitable for his age, i.e. not too “sophisticated”, he would be randomly pulling books of the shelves that he’d bring to me. Invariably they were books that I thought were beyond him, but to humour him would borrow a few of his selections along with my own. Time and again I would find that he would sit enthralled through the longer, “more sophisticated” books and want me to read them again and again. I pretty quickly learnt that I was way underestimating what children were capable of comprehending.
Thank you for looking me up and for your wonderful comment! I think most kids are quite capable and enjoy fun challenges for the most part... and are certain able to ask questions if something is confusing. And I consider the adults who may have to read a book to a kid more than a dozen times...isn't a kindness to that adult to have some level of interest for them too? As George says in this post about the writers consideration of the reader. Anyway, affection to you in Australia and Thank you again!
agree for sure! I must have read Where the Wild Things Are ten thousand times, seems like, and what kept me going were the pictures. Same with A Snowy Day and all Lio Lionni books, all William Steig. And the simple story told. Wow, haven't thought of these in many years.. But along with other things I can't bear to part with, some of these books are still in the closet under the stairs in the house I have to get cleared out soon.
Yes, indeed, I so many of the books I read to my kids, I was discovering for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed. Nothing better than snuggling up with your kids and reading a great story.
I'm intimidated by the idea of publishing, because unlike writing, the publishing world is unknown territory involving things I may not be good at--public speaking, schmoozing, learning the secret language of publishers, knowing who is who among agents and editors, and negotiating deals. It's a steep learning curve.
Amazon certainly is the major force in bookselling but I don’t think most writers or readers are aware of how much power is possessed by independent bookstores, especially when it comes to the books that are more “writer” than “reader.” Amazon is Goliath and Independent bookstores are David, right? Well, that’s true to a large extent. But there are certain independent booksellers, certain people, who have enormous personal and professional power and influence. Early in my career, while doing book tours, I often wondered why I was traveling a thousand miles to sell one book. But I learned that I was building relationships—schmoozing—with the booksellers. Yeah, it’s total capitalism even when it’s independent.
Sherman, you were very close with Bob who owned Twenty-Third Avenue Books in Portland, Oregon. I worked with Bob there and remember how the two of you engaged with one another whenever you came to read from something new. He adored you and couldn't contain himself whenever we knew you were on the way. Personal engagement and interactions as such feel like they're born out of everyone's individual and funny way of looking at life. Like books, we live as we write ourselves, if we live and write well.
I understand your concerns, but in today's market only the big-selling writers get sent off on tours where they do readings. Most writers sit around at home, hoping someone may want to interview them. As far as negotiating deals: a writer is lucky to get one offer, so negotiating is not going to be a problem for most. (I hope whatever you're selling sets off a bidding war--i don't know you, so i have no idea where in your writing career you are writing from.) I don't mean to belittle your concerns--they are entirely valid. The vast majority of people have a fear of public speaking. And anything having to do with signing contracts is intimidating. I'm just saying that for most of us, these aren't going to turn out to be big problems.
My experience of publishing short stories has nothing to do with any of that stuff. It's just researching markets and submitting. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Of course it's different if you're shopping a novel or a collection.
I was speaking to a previous comment about publishing containing so much “unknown territory” and how “art versus commerce” plays into that. And there’s no way to speak of my expertise in these matters without sounding like an egomaniac.
Betsy, I have a fear of public speaking, which is now under control. A friend of mine who owns a books on tape company admitted to me that she also used to have that fear, but managed to overcome it. She set up her studio for a "reading" and we invited a friendly audience, and that allowed me to practice reading of a story I wrote in front of a crowd. Before the "reading" I rehearsed it with my actor/director/ theater friends. Do you know any actors? They can coach you through this fear. People loved helping me! It was so generous. Look for the helpers. They want to see you succeed.
do not mean to push drugs here on substack. But yes, it's fantastic and it truly works. Taken by many Broadway actors, etc. There is no change in your feelings. It just simply cuts away the fight or flight response so your heart doesn't begin to pound.
I still resent the fact I have to do other stuff than write. When I started out, I made a good living out of my novels. Then, around ten years ago, I realised I was spending more time selling myself than writing. Or doing other work to fill the gaps. And the situation hasn't changed. My last advance, after ten novels, was less than my first advance. But hey, I'm still getting published and I am truly grateful for that. Also it has surprising benefits. Like starting my Substack thread, which I wouldn't have done if I was making money like back in the day. And now I really enjoy it. So there's always an upside. And the main upside is, as George says, writing is a lovely life-affirming thing to do. It gives you a voice. Even if very few people get to hear it.
As soon as I escorted my literary heroes out of my writing room, politely of course, my writing improved. I can write. I know that, have known it since childhood (as I suspect most of us have), and have been fortunate enough to make part of my living by writing. But what has been so restrictive, what has held me back (or anyway did), was the constant & deliberate focus on the other, on where to land on that "rainbow arc". Who, finally, cares? I think George has it right when he writes of taking responsibility for where, or if, you land. I don't think you can help if & where you land. You're airborne. That's all that matters. I've had the great good fortune to meet some of my heroes & to spend some time last summer with one of them. He & I had an exchange similar to today's post. His response to this whole issue of art v commerce was: "I don't care." In other words, his prose lands where it lands. I know it sounds glib, but glib this guy isn't. A little silly maybe, but not glib. "Just write," he said to me, most sincerely, meaning that the power of true sincerity & the willingness to connect will carry the prose. I've known this all along, of course. We probably all have known this! It's acknowledging this that is so freeing. Somewhere Kurt Vonnegut mentions having written everything to his sister Jane, that she was the other to whom he connected, the power the drove that heart-stopping, funny, wicked prose.
The image of rich Midas at his writing desk reminds me of a scene in a TV show in which an independently wealthy young man says to a homicide detective, "I've always wondered about having a job. Is it nice?"
Loved this part:
"Are we interested, curious, noticing, changing our view, always changing our view, loving the world, compelled by the beauty of language? Nothing can take those things away from us and, the truth is, nothing external can give them to us either."
It's tempting, to me at least, to want to keep the world at arm's length. I hate to admit it, but perhaps I'm better off not being wealthy enough to do so. The need to make a living compels closeness with the world. Even when I don't like how things are going, in here and out there, being curious about and loving the world is always available. There's freedom in that.
Lovely and gorgeously articulated, as always. I've nothing else to add other than to say I try to write the types of things I like to read. As I don't read commercial best-sellers, I don't expect to write a commercial best-seller. Nor deep, complicated, literary fiction. I'm hoping to write a novel roughly two-thirds of the way to the R, and then see what happens.
Another home run post by our resident Bodhisattva. Good antidote to a, perhaps fallacious, angst point. Often we invisible writers are more tortured by our “heroes” than reality - our own or actual, out there reality. So say, like me, your a DF Wallace fan. Well, talk about pyrotechnics!! So maybe I try to write, even in my own way, pyrotechnically and, because I ain’t a genius and Wallace most certainly was, the result is UGH. Or, say, you’re a John Irving acolyte and - voila - you find yourself trying to be Charles Dickens. So maybe along with “kill your darlings” we should add “kill your heroes”.
Joining Story Club amplifies this tension more than anything else I can think of. You join because George is a hero. And then, as a member, you watch George humanize himself. It's a necessary weekly reminder well worth the price of admission, wouldn't you say?
i joined because I loved George's book on writing and knew this would be a great place to learn more. I can't say George was my hero when I joined. To me, he was incredibly bright, had written some amazing stories and a killer novel, and had revealed himself to be a true mensch in A Swim, Pond, Rain. But now--as he "humanizes himself," as you say, as he continues to respond in his inimitable way, full of kindness and hope, as he listens to us and works with us and wants for us(!!), he has become a sort of hero to me. He's someone i look up to and learn from. He continually reveals himself to be a noble human. I want to be like him--more compassionate and less judgmental. More willing to see beauty everywhere. So for me, it's the opposite of you--from not my hero to hero! (But exactly like you, I came for the cookies and found a full-on feast! Very much worth every penny!)
It's funny, I actually had the exact same experience and just defined the two sides differently. When I used the term "hero," I thought of it in terms of the unattainable: ie. fame, success, other-ness. But you're right, George continues to show himself to be worth looking up to. "Noble" is the right word. Beyond all the writing and career stuff, if there's anything I'd like to emulate from the guy, it's his nobility (not to put too much pressure on you, George!).
I only knew of George from Lincoln in the Bardo, which I struggled with at first and then grew to love and appreciate in some kind of deep way. After joining Story Club, I found A Swim and started getting stunned by his short stories.
Heroes aren't heroes because they succeed, they're heroes because they try despite all the odds against it. If you read any honest author, they'll tell you every new story or book is a leap into the unknown; and learning how to be comfortable taking that leap is a lot of becoming a writer. Every Writer, no matter published or unpublished, famous or unknown, always faces the same thing at the begining - the void of an empty page. It's scary, but somewhere in there is your story, and you're not going to find it just looking at it. Go find it. Go find a part of yourself you didn't know existed. It's the greatest razz in the universe...
I think of those writers who are “one-hit wonders.” I won’t name any of them because I don’t mean to be cruel or insulting. But I think of how a book (usually the author’s first) goes epic—how it’s often an book that arcs more toward the “writer” but still manages to sell like a book arcing toward the “reader.” And then comes the aftermath. What happens to the soul of those writers whose books never again sell like that? I have writer friends and acquaintances who’ve experienced this but I’ve never asked them how they feel about it. It feels like a question that one writer would never ask another.
I'm very close to a person who had this experience. While i can't answer for him, let me say that the sale of an "epic" novel has allowed him to do just about anything he wants to in life, and also led to large advances for his later books. He continues to write and explore. He has a great life! He will always be known for his big one, but hey, we should all have such problems.
Again, we should all have such pressures... (I may have mis-spoken about his advances. Thinking back on it, I think he may have sold each book separately and so didn't have the pressure of receiving money for books not yet written.)
it's all so complicated. i turned down an advance because i couldn't handle the pressure. Later, i realized that probably made the publisher less invested in me. (And in the end, they didn't buy the second book they'd offered an advance for, and I ended up selling it to another publisher for less than the first one had offered.) The entire marketing part of writing sucks
That’s so interesting. I imagine a spectrum from bitterness to gratitude. I saw a video recently about a singer-songwriter who had one giant hit in the late 1970s and then seemed to vanish. The video was made by a group of high school students about “our most beloved substitute teacher.” He seems to have taken the aftermath in stride. And he still plays music in small venues. Loving life and exuding grace.
I remember an interview with an 80s one-hit wonder band—though I can’t remember who exactly—where the lead singer said, “It’s better than being a no-hit wonder.”
Right. And there’s never knowing how something you wrote or sang or painted that might seem to have failed still moves people in a soul-saving way long after you’re dead.
George mentioned Confederacy of Dunces, with which I wasn't familiar, so in reading about the author, John Kennedy Toole, I see your point highlighted in that author's tragic life story, David.
I have a friend who got his first novel published with a big fat advance. So exciting! But it didn’t sell well. Since then no one will take a chance on his second book.
It was a good lesson for me, who hasn’t published a novel yet, and maybe never will. Happy ending to this otherwise dismal tale is that he is still writing, giving readings locally — he is still alive.
Victims of their own success are the words that come to mind. It takes courage to accept success and go all in again. Sometimes second novels are worse, sometimes the third or fourth was the one the writer was working upto. Most Nobel laureates have a body of work and not the single hit.
The first short story I ever got published had the lines: “My stories are me talking to myself, hoping somebody will overhear. I’ve always felt like I spy on life rather than being a part of it. It’s odd. My work can’t be meaningful all on its own; other people have to find it meaningful. I have to know what other people find meaningful to make meaning for them. But if I were good with people, I wouldn’t be turning inward to entertain myself. I probably wouldn’t be a writer.”
This was right at the start of the pandemic. And it was another year before I had another short story published. I credit it entirely to deciding to make an effort to talk directly to people rather than wait to be overheard. Until I realized that writing what I liked AND conveying it in an vivid, intelligent, fun, and most importantly, understandable ways was what readers wanted, I was only ever accidentally good. When I learned what readers like to read, how they read, I learned to put names to things that I liked when I read, but didn’t know was a thing. I could then consciously work those things into my writing. It’s fun to understand, “Oh, that’s how Great Writer did that.” It’s amazing when a reader responded to my work. I learned what mattered to me by writing for other people, and I began to enjoy my own work a lot more.
Thank you for this. It speaks to issues that have been at the forefront of my mind for a while now, and you're saying things that I think I needed to hear.
"Are we interested, curious, noticing, changing our view, always changing our view, loving the world, compelled by the beauty of language? Nothing can take those things away from us and, the truth is, nothing external can give them to us either." This is just wonderful. Writing is a way of being...or better, a way of giving. I think one of the traps in the art vs. commerce dichotomy, one that I myself frequently fall into, is thinking that writing has to exist in some kind of pure form, separate from human messiness and corruption, so that everything can be redeemed within it. But if we think of art as a rejection of commerce, it can become something reactionary that simply sets up its own form of "currency". Does writing redeem, transmute? I think, in a way, it does...but it doesn't take from the world, doesn't use up resources...it gives to the world, revealing what was always already redeemed. (And nothing is separate.)
I agree that the best writing occurs when there is some sort of audience in mind. (The world is made of relations, and there's a kind of falsity in separating ourselves from that.) And I agree that every writer has their own ideal audience, and part of the journey of writing is figuring out what that audience is. Maybe we're writing for mass appeal, maybe we're writing for a much smaller audience...maybe we're writing to only one person, maybe even God. But the critical part is that the "audience-mirror" that we use to refine our work must be incorporated into our own being, in the sense that it doesn't provide us with something we don't have already. We should write not to get something out of our audience (approval, respect, whatever), but rather to share, to give.
"There is less interest in concealment in the name of not being corny; more interest in giving the reader the simple facts she needs in order for the stakes to rise; the writer becomes committed to taking the reader on a wild-but-meaningful ride; I note a movement toward simplicity and real human feeling." That's the thing. For me the difference between something that happened and a story I want to write is just that. The event lies on the page with much of its import concealed. The import is in there. But buried more or less. I have a long fight with getting the import clear enough to be a wild and meaningful ride. Even when I see it, is it clear enough for the reader? Thanks, thanks, thanks! This essay is a ray of light.
after reading through the comments, I feel compelled to add this (kind of depressing, sorry) thought: being published (for MOST of us--perhaps not for those who end up with true fame and very good contracts) doesn't change anything. Sure, for a few moments, you feel great. Validated. It's something you've worked hard for and now--here it is! A real, live book! A few people actually buy it (or the journal you were published in or whatever). They congratulate you. You feel like you've entered a club--those who have made it. Look how smart you are! Look how others acknowledge your intellect, your humor, your ability to write! And then.....crickets. Honest to god. It ends. And you are just you again. And no one cares about your book. i can't tell you how many people have asked me what I do and I say, well, I'm mostly a writer, I wrote a couple of novels. And that's.....end of conversation. If i didn't get personal satisfaction from putting pen to paper, I wouldn't do it. Because no one cares if I write or not. My "job" is to enjoy my life. And if that enjoyment comes from writing, then fantastic! But i know that it really doesn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world if I write or if i don't write. I'm not all that important and no one is waiting for my next book. It's a blast to get published, just like it's a blast to have any sort of success in life. But you are still you. And if you want a career, you have to manage to do it all over again, this time with expectations from others. I'm gonna post this even though maybe i should not. I know how lucky i am to ever have had a book published in the first place. I really do. But like anything, the thrill comes and goes and you are left with yourself again. My personal takeaway is that doing what you love is a great way to live a satisfying life. But it's all in the doing and not in the having done. What was the question again? Sorry, i'm rambling.
Oh Mary! How right you are! Shortly before my 20th high school class reunion, I won the Cosmopolitan magazine short story contest. Of course I sent a press release to the hometown paper. Comes the reunion. A woman comes up to me and says, "Nancy! I read about you in the paper!" I puff up and smile. She says, "You went on a trip or something?" Or something. Oh well. Your post took me back to a funny moment!
ha! Exactly! (And congratulations, by the way! That's fantastic!)
Thank you for posting Mary. You're right, most of us remain anonymous most of the time, despite our fifteen minutes of fame. When I tell people I'm a playwright, they always say 'Oh, anything I might have seen?' The honest reply is 'I doubt it.' A friend, a fellow playwright, offered me the great response - 'I don't know; what have you seen?' I think it's why the entertainment industry has so many awards ceremonies. If you lucky enough to win, you have the ecstatic moment of accepting the award and being loved and respected at the same time...for the allotted one minute. Then you have the award on your shelf to polish and stroke in years to come as a reminder of what once was. And you have your published book, a huge achievement, and something that can't be 'unachieved' - you will always have it - it is always there.
Thank you, Tom. I have friends who are screenwriters--their scripts may sell, but are then never made into movies. So I really feel for them! When people ask "oh, anything that i've seen?" they have to explain the way it all works... and that the answer to the question is "no." By that time, the person who asked has fallen asleep. I love that you're a playwright! I'm mid-way through a course in playwriting at the moment, and just wrote a ten-minute one that is super dumb but at least it works as a play. Learning, learning.
and yes, you are right, I'll always have my books on my shelf. I also have the books that other family members have written over the years. In the case of my former father in law: he wrote a couple huge bestsellers in the sixties. His books are old now, no one has heard of them, and he's no longer around to look at his dusty books. Again, the lesson is to do what you do, enjoy the doing, and know that nothing lasts.
I once found one of my grandfather’s books in the library of a writer friend’s mother. What a pleasure!
Oh, that is the best!
I feel this. And I'd add that I keep moving the goalposts. I once said that I'd call myself a writer the day I was paid for it. But then when I got a poem published, I'd remind myself that I wasn't paid much, it was a small print. It didn't count. I had a short story published and I told myself that it wasn't real. It was an audiobook. The editor butchered it.
I've written screenplays. I finally had one optioned. They paid me money. I spent time with the producers scouting locations and talking about revisions. I made several. I felt like this was it -- the cusp of success. But then they got cold feet and didn't move forward.
But as I look back on my life, I see that I've been writing since I was eleven. It's how I express myself. It's the cure to my anxiety. It's the way I process life. Writing and editing as skills have given me a full career in "not writing but close." I've been paid for writing skills for decades. (Cue Harry Chapin's "Taxi")
I'd love to publish a novel. And if I do, I'll probably experience exactly what you've described in the original post. And I'll try to enjoy it as another rite of passage. Maybe.
There is something very Tao and or Buddhist in this; I’m glad you posted it, Mary. All this striving, and for what? Oh, right, because we fell in love with books and authors, and wanted to join the party. But really, most of life is outside of that. You publish a book, but you’re still you. You fall madly in love, but when the endorphins subside, you’re still you. You better be a pretty good version of yourself…and remember to enjoy the sunshine, the birdsong, the child’s smile, the kind word. Oh, and the joy you felt with finally sculpting that perfect line, or hitting that amazing run of chords or notes…
Love your rambles. I was raised to believe that people are either artists or they are not artists, and that it has zero to do with any kind of commercial success.
Stacya- I saw a great flow chart once, showing how to determine if you’re an artist. It starts with a box that contains the words “Make Some Art”. That flows with an arrow to the next box “Is it Good?”. That flows with arrows to 2 options: “Yes” or “No”. Both of those have arrows pointing back to a single box: “Make More Art”. Then the last box says: “Congratulations, You’re an Artist”.
I love that. Maybe it needs to be a t-shirt!
I was raised with the same notion, and obviously, I wasn’t born an artist, as artists were born out from artists parents…
It might make certain people more driven to succeed as an artist if they didn't fit in with their own family, a family full of accountants, or whatever. I don't believe I was born any more creative than anyone else, but our house was filled with art supplies, clay, canvas, paint, colored pencils and paper, and that's what we did all day, along with reading and writing, playing albums, and putting on "shows." I wonder how many kids would consider themselves creative (whether they grow up to get paid to be creative or not) if they had all that stuff piled around.
How was to grow up in such a house?
The creative part was fantastic. Our friends were artists, writers, filmmakers, playwrights, musicians. The practical side of life was lacking. I regret my formal education. My parents didn’t see value in school, so there was an imbalance. Also, we were broke, got evicted a lot...by my teenage years I began to think of living as an artist as a road to poverty and financial ruin.
Thanks. So interesting. I had a friend whose parents were artists too, and she had a similar experience in terms of financial struggle. She also felt that the lack of boundaries was too much for her…
You have mentioned before about your upbringing and i find it just fascinating. What a great message to have received from your parents! (I was raised to believe you grew up, got married and had babies. Full stop. Art was never mentioned or discussed.)
My mother is an artist, and my father was a performer and writer...he wrote some porn on the side under the pen name "Zachary Quill." Back then, they had strong opinions about being an artist that I drifted away from. They didn't think school was important at all, as if you just shot out the womb a fully formed "artist" and then there you are, no training needed. In my opinion, that's kooky talk. I'm so glad I went to college. Most of my friends who are working actors or writers came from families that didn't encourage art at all. It motivates them, perhaps.
Wow. What a singularly interesting upbringing you must have had! Maybe you'll write a memoir one of these days, because it sounds like you've got a lot to write about. Not encouraged to go to college! That's amazing. College was a given in my world.
In my case, i was brought up to believe you shot out of the womb either smart or not smart. For years, i got by on that one--no one ever explained to me that you actually had to study and learn! (And i was never encouraged to study and learn. Just to....get married and make those babies!) (Okay, i'm gonna google Zachary Quill.....)
Here's a funny short piece I wrote about coming across the porn my father wrote...https://www.stacyasilverman.com/single-post/part-76-cream-pie
Full confession: I didn't fully understand what "cream pie" meant when I first began writing...
oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Wow. Everything about this. Wow. (I laughed out loud at this: "My mother is still alive, so I’ll say this: Mom, despite your best efforts, I’m a prude.") Oh, my god, do you have an agent? I'm gonna go down the rabbit hole of your blog as soon as i get a chance. Your writing is fantastic--there was no way I was gonna stop reading. Tell me this is a book.
That was great. I like how you call your parents (at least in this post) by their first names. My sister started doing that, and when I caught on I realized, oh, this is a way to establish some necessary distance.
I have trouble sometimes with those ‘graphic’ words also, and therefore retreat into metaphor. But Yiddish words work well for many things; they have the proper music, and also that lovely humorous bent. (Some people I have known use words that are either Sanskrit or Hindi, and seem to tantrically combine the sexual with the sacred, which also makes sense to me.)
Well I loved this. So, so much. I'm with Mary: please tell me you're working on a book!
(Also: I remember reading a novel--from a writer I love!--that kept using the word "peen." I cringed every. single. time.)
oh, man, your dad! yes, sorry, I'd forgotten about your story about him! And what a story!
100% this.
and it’s not depressing at all, it is actually liberating.
Exactly.
Thank you, Jibran!
Mary- you should always hit 'post.' Your experiences, thoughts and ways of sharing them with the rest of us are terrific. Thanks for those. In case it's interesting, I wanted to add a corollary to this, about being an architect, which is also a career filled with artistic satisfaction and struggle, terror of the blank page and cyclical hits of fame dopamine followed by crickets. Getting our work published (which most of us crave) follows the same patterns you described. One interesting difference is that when people ask what I do and I tell them I'm an architect, half the time they tell me they wished they were one too, or they almost become one, which sort of affirms that they know little of the struggle and view it mostly through the fantasy. They think that because buildings don't fade away (usually) that there might be an eternal stream of recognition and appreciation. Well, most of the time the building lives on and the creator becomes a footnote and we have to just get back to work. Actually we become a footnote that falls below the one for the photographer who took the picture of the building or the artist who made the sculpture in front of the entry. For some reason, those two artistic professions always get credit even though the energy they invested is generally far less than the architect's. Maybe this is similar to a movie based on book? The movie captures the most of the public awareness.
Kurt, first of all, thank you for the support regarding my comments. I've mentioned before that sometimes I worry that I post too much and that perhaps it gets annoying, so hearing this from you is much appreciated.
Your experience as an architect is so interesting! Wow--just something I haven't thought about before, but you're quite right about the similarities. You say it's an interesting difference--that when people ask what you do and you tell them you're an architect, half the time they reply that they wish they could be an architect as well. Well, that's actually not so different! People often tell me that they want to write, are planning to write, have a great idea if they only had time, have a great idea for me to write about, have a great idea and they'd tell me but they're afraid i'll steal it, plan to write a novel as soon as they retire, and on and on. Hey, i think it's great that so many people dream about writing. But it seems to me that many of them believe it will all come easily--the writing and the subsequent success. Who knows--maybe for some of them it will come easily! But I kinda doubt it. (Not everyone reacts this way, of course. Plenty of people know that writing is hard and that it takes a lot of tenacity and time--both to learn and to create.)
i never thought about how a photographer will get credit for a photo of a building, when the architect is most of the time not mentioned! That's wild. In the move/TV world, the writer is credited way down the line. The producer, and especially the director--those names are the big ones. And those are the ones with the big paychecks. The writers get paid the least of anyone! (I'm sure there are people here in Story Club who are in the movie business and who can chime in if I'm off base. But I'm pretty certain I have it right.) It always kills me that the person responsible for the story gets the least respect.
It all comes back to the same thing over and over, right? We're not always going to get credit or understanding. Our names may not be known, ever. We may not get paid enough--or at all. So we've got to enjoy making the things we make, or else find something else to do.
It’s funny, I’ve often wondered if the fact that creative people need to create and express has made us susceptible to being taken advantage of. We are going to make art, regardless. Not trying to whine too much about money here, just observing that by simple logic, the person who conjures up the idea, the alchemist, should really get more recognition, and compensation. It’s puzzling how that is often not the case, except for those at the very top of the heap, the stars. BTW- your description of people telling you you about their writing aspirations makes perfect sense. I only called my experience ‘different’ because you had described people sort of detaching once you tell them you’re a writer. But it makes sense that they would instead share their writing fantasy. Everybody’s got a screenplay they want to share…
I remember when the film "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" won awards, an Oscar for Best Writing, Original Screenplay by Nia Vardalos...the producer, Rita Wilson, held up the award and did all the talking. I remember thinking, wait...shouldn't Nia Vardalos be giving that speech? Instead of standing next to Rita Wilson, silent, smiling...I'm sure she was thrilled, but still. Since it was a stage play first, that Vardalos wrote and starred in? I still don't get it. I'm not saying she was taken advantage of, just noticing that's how it seems to go down. I mean, good for Rita Wilson for having the good sense to find the play and make the film.
Here's a more current example: I just watched a movie on Netflix called "Spiderhead"....For obvious reasons, I was eagerly anticipating the credit for the short story writer who came up with the idea. (Some guy named George something or other...). Well, it took like forever to get to George's name. First came everybody who had money in it and who acted in it. Then came the New Yorker, which published the short story. Eventually George's name showed up, half obscured by the background in the movie at that moment. I was bummed. My hero in all this got sort of dissed, though he may not feel that way since I'm sure it's a gigantic thrill just to see it get made into a movie - now that's some good cocktail party conversation fodder.
Take a look at the back cover of this week's New Yorker. Big ad for Spiderhead. At the top of the ad, in relatively large typeface, it says: "Based on a Short Story from the New Yorker." Doesn't say who wrote that short story! (It does have George's name buried in unreadable font at the bottom of the page.) I understand that you sell your work and then it's out of your hands. But this almost looks like a joke. Based on a short story from this very magazine! But we won't say who wrote it!
The movie actually didn't win any oscars. Nia Vardalos was nominated, though. I think maybe you're remembering the Visionary awards(?) which it seems Rita Wilson won for more or less discovering the play and getting her husband's company to buy it. So you can quit being mad at Rita Wilson!
Not mad, because it's just the way things are. It was a bigger award than that, maybe People's Choice or something? I don't know what the Visionary Awards are. I'm saying yes, cool that Rita Wilson saw the play, liked it, had to the good sense to produce it and get that ball rolling, but it is a living story because: Nia Vardalos. Not mad, just always perplexed by the whole thing. People do take credit for other people's work in various ways, especially in the music and entertainment world.
And what about Elena Ferrante‘s novel, The Lost Daughter? Maggie Gyllenthal
got all the credit, as I remember.
Gotcha. The detachment is about my books. Then they tell me they want to write, too. It's all fine--it's just nice people attempting to make conversation with me. I'll tell you another one that people say to authors all of the time. The say, "I'm on the waiting list for your book at the library!" And you have to say, oh, that's great! I hope you like the book! When what you really want to say is please purchase the book. It's how I make a living.... Anyway, I feel like I am saying mean things about nice people who are trying their best. I'm sure I say dumb things to people all of the time, too. One of the only things that i'm grateful for when it comes to the pandemic is that i no longer go to parties much, after which i usually come home and have to kick myself for the dumb things I've said or done.
Here's a trick. Tell them if they like the book, buy a copy from you and you'll autograph it.
Mary, one of the nice things about SC is getting a chance to know other writers, so I'm perfectly happy to read your posts with the only proviso that Substack makes it hard sometimes to find the damn things. Post away!
Being an architect, I thought you'd get a kick out of this...
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/frank-lloyd-wright-dog-house-trnd/index.html
Dear Mary,
I can completely relate with your post. In my career I found myself many times in that place, where the goal always moves and the excitement is short lived, but I thought there is something more about publishing. I must start by saying that I haven’t been published. Everything I write is loved by my friends and family and always rejected by magazines and agents. I have asked myself whether I should stop writing, but I love it, so I won’t. I don’t care about fame, I write under a pseudonym anyway, so I wondered whether I should have stopped sending my material. why should I care about being published? Well, I think because I would like, with my writing, to reach people. Initiate a conversation. Have a place in a community. If nobody reads what I write, my writing has the same function of going for a run, or taking a long bath. It becomes an enjoyable activity, but I wish it to be something more, something with which I can relate to others. I also dream, with my writing to make the world a better place. I wish my writing will comfort, like so many novels have comforted me, have elevated me, and gave me hope, when I felt I had none. Am I naïve?
Your mini short story of 50 words, in 50 words (one of the very first exercises in this forum) made me think for so long about divorce and the longing and fears of families that decompose and recompose. It was so delicate and compassionate. I think it changed me somehow, for the better. I think this is the power of getting published. The trill and the deflation of the achievement, those, are only side effects of getting published, I think….
My goodness, Aurora, what a lovely post. “I wish my writing will comfort, like so many novels have comforted me, have elevated me, and gave me hope, when I felt I had none.” I think a similar feeling was a big part of what set me on this convoluted path, the stories and books that took me to a different, better place, and possibly saved my life more than once. I wanted to pay that forward! It’s frustrating that I remain more or less unpublished, but a few friends have responded to a few of my stories in exactly the way I had hoped for. (Really, more intensely than I had hoped for…) So, don’t give up! (I’m glad you mentioned Mary’s 50/200 piece. Did that ever resonate! The anxiety of it, coupled with the way her lines mirrored one another as they mirrored life. Dynamic.)
I am going to leave you my email and invite you to send anything you might be okay with me reading (and I will reciprocate if you would like.) But no pressure!! I just thought, after reading your post, I would love to read something by you! Keep at it!
canyonwrenvibes@gmail.com
Thank you so much, David. The publishing world is a very strange place to me. My feelings towards it change by the day. But yes, I’ll keep on sending things out. With a full time job that has nothing to do with creative writing and a young son to raise, I must say I am not very active, but it’s ok. I have made peace with it.
Isn’t it beautiful when we connect to our friends and family also as writers? I find it very rewarding to see my close ones engage to my works of fiction. You must feel the same when your readers react to your writing. Thank you also for your very generous offer to read something of mine, it is very kind of you.
Yes! The time or two that something I wrote moved someone to joy or tears was some kind of pure bliss. I have a young son also; he just turned four. It’s so mind-bending right now to experience his consciousness become more full by the minute…I just wrote three pages that might actually be half-good. Gladness! Have a great day!!
Thanks David! Ha! So good you were able to write today and that you liked what you wrote. Is it a short story? And do you find time to write regularly? I don’t…
I think it will be a short story. Writing regularly is but a dream right now. I have to squeeze time through a toothpaste tube when my child is asleep or otherwise engaged. But, he will be spending more and more time in school and other activities as time proceeds! But I am trying to be more regular…
Aurora, what a lovely note you have sent me. It means a lot to me, so thank you so much. You should know that I often have no readers for my work either, save for family and friends. Work gets rejected and never sees a larger community of readers. There are times when I no longer feel that i am a writer at all, that I have lost my moment and my momentum. And then I find myself, like you, putting words on paper again. I don't think you are naive and I think it's beautiful that you want to write stories that comfort, elevate, bring hope. We, none of us, have any idea what tomorrow will bring. Keep sending your stories out! You're right that with publishing, after the thrill is gone, the stories may live on and may touch someone's heart. I hadn't really taken that into account and thank you for that notion. Writing is therapy, I tell myself. Even if no one reads my words, I have watched my own brain at work. Watched the paths my thoughts follow. Have found out what I think! So there is always an upside. Writing makes me a better person, I think. I try to hold on to that. Thank you again. This was such a joy to read.
Hi Mary, I’m really glad you liked my message. I think it is beautiful that your writing has this power on strangers, and that it resonates inside their hearts. Even if it’s just a few hearts, even if it is just one.
Thanks also for sharing that you too get rejections… it is a mystery to me why some things are published and some are not, but it’s nice to be on the other side of validation - to write just for the journey.
love this. Thank you again.
I too will take a look at your work. My user name is my email. You're welcome to send me anything you want. If there's a context to why you wrote it and what you're trying to do with it, you might include that in a forward to it so I can better understand it. Also, do you just want a read, or a critique? I'm fine either way. Looking forwards...
Thanks Michael, this is very generous of you.
You're welcome. We're here to support each other.
One of my Korean shows mentioned "The Rule of Ten," which says out of ten people, two will like you, six will be indifferent to you, and two will hate you. You're always going to run across people indifferent to writing. That's fine. It's good to mark them as not worth your time. Just keep looking until you find the ones whose eyes light up and go "Really!?"
That’s it! The joy of writing is not in the temporary joy of satisfying the ego (though that feels great, for a while) — it’s in the joy of writing.
There's an old story (I forget which religion it's from) that God created all the creatures of the world so that he could look at his creation through a million different eyes. That's the joy of writing for me, to take a situation, throw all my different characters into it, live it through their eyes, and combine it all together.
Oh, I love that! Thank you! I want to remember it.
I absolutely think you should have posted this Mary! It’s easy to think that external markers that indicate that we’ve ‘made it’ will somehow transform our lives and give us the validation we feel we need or deserve. But achieving these ‘goals’ is so often hollow and when the golden dust of achievement settles around us we are left thinking - is that it? Enduring satisfaction has to come from within. If I can write a beautiful sentence that expresses something true, is that enough to make the work involved in doing so worthwhile? For me the answer is yes although the beautiful sentences are rare sparkles in a sea of mostly muddy mediocrity.
Kate, I gotta say that when I achieved my goals (a published book) it didn't feel hollow. It felt great! And there's still a sense of personal pride I carry in having done what I thought was maybe impossible. But after that....it's back to the blank page. The world is full of people who could care less that i wrote a book. I know once best-selling authors who now receive zero name recognition. This, after years of saying their name and having other people go, oh my god! I read your book!!! Now....nothing. So you gotta be happy with the daily grind and be happy with the writing part, because the rest of it disappears before you know it. (For most.) As you say, "enduring satisfaction has to come from within." True, always.
It’s great that you still feel the glow of that achievement Mary, good on you!
Thank you, Kate!
Ya gotta just keep plugging along. If your work is good, it will endure the test of time. We're still reading Cervantes, Rumi's poetry, and Homer. Good stories live forever, even if their author's don't.
That's a beautiful word string to end with: 'rare sparkles in a sea of mostly muddy mediocrity'. Adds extra value to a worthwhile post. Thanks.
Thanks Rob! Beautiful word strings are almost as satisfying as beautiful sentences 😊
Reading or writing a scintillating sentence is almost as good as hiking in the Grand Canyon on or the Pacific Crest Trail! (Some might say, better.)
Sigh. Heavy sigh. This is my life struggle. I write this now from my desk at work. Just this morning I sent a message to a friend saying that I hoped this summer I might find my way back to some writing. The absence has been long. I hope it will prove to have been a fruitful sabbatical, but it could just be time away where I grow more and more rusty and feel less and less a writer. Breadwinner. Not sure what I am winning except keeping the ship afloat. It's a ship without a lot of art on the walls. On your recommendation I ordered Tillie Olsen's "Silences". Like her, I have long been a mother who is solely responsible for running the household. It has been about 4 years since I published anything, and over a year since I submitted anything. I take photographs these days as it is art I can make as I go about my day. I dream of retirement. I dream about days when my worry is only that I have the time to write and I am not using it! I yearn for days when I can mark my writing time in hours, not minutes. I want my imagination to dwell in a house as big as the sky. I want to run away with my obsessions and not come home until after the supper dishes are done. This work-life makes all the best bits of me smaller, and I miss them so.
I used to feel this way too. I am now free to do as I please, and yet have not accomplished much. My best work was done when I had little time. As George said, writing is a frame of mind.
KG - I can relate. I have become free to do more of what I please. I thought it would be writing. I love writing. And yet, what I do is…I dunno….delight in life w/o writing much of it down right now. I’m trying to roll with that and see where it leads. I heard Depak Chopra say once that people tell him when they meditate they fall asleep. They want to know why and what the secret is. He says to them, ‘sounds like you’re tired and need to get more sleep first’
Thanks for your honesty Taryn. You articulated a sense of longing that I think many of us can relate to. Whatever minutes it took you to write this, it reached me, a reader. It resonated and I responded. So there you go. You’re a writer, writing, sharing, and reaching a stranger(s) who became moved. I, like many here I assume, rarely feel like it’s enough (time, word count, brilliance…) And yet, little flashes of success. The light gets through.
Thank you, Kurt.
“I want my imagination to dwell in a house as big as the sky.” I love that. Seems like the chord you struck here resonates with many of us. Maybe with all of us.
You, Taryn, are a writer. Who has just written. You just did it. My life doesn't sound anything like yours, but in writing FROM your heart and TO your readers, you just did the thing that writers do, or anyway the best writers: made me care. That heavy sigh you may be entitled to, this I won't argue, but I hope you're collecting all those heavy sighs, parts of a coming & coherent & heart-grabbing whole they are. In the meantime, read Carver's "Fires" if you haven't already. (Writes Carver: "[T]he greatest single influence on my life, and on my writing. . . has been my two children. [T]here wasn't any area of my life where their heavy and often baleful influence didn't reach." Ouch! No Father of the Year Award there, but notice he says "influence" & thus those story gems of his, driven, in part, spurred by that balefulness. I'm just sayin'.)
Lots of first novels have been written while working day jobs. Or stories. If you get a line or two a day you are moving forward.
Thank you. I really appreciate the support you all are offering me! It has helped immensely, actually. I am glad I decided to go ahead and whine in public!
"Writing is a lovely, life-affirming thing to do, even if the world never rewards us for it, or never rewards us enough to allow us to make it the main thing in our lives. It's a vocation, after all, not a job – and even if we’re lucky enough to have it as our job, it’s still not a job, not really."
What a lovely pair of sentences to read on a Thursday in June. Thank you.
Just subscribed and I’m blown away with all the affirming and helpful advice in just this single post. Thanks, George.
Something I try to keep at the forefront of my mind: writing finishes with the reader, not the writer.
This quote is everything: "...what makes us a writer in the moment is the state of our mind. Are we interested, curious, noticing, changing our view, always changing our view, loving the world, compelled by the beauty of language?"
When everything else in life demands our attention, maybe there's some value to surrendering to it. Life is kind of writing lived out loud and it's all fodder in the end? Even my 14-year-old niece's incessant texts, asking if I can please like her latest TikTok.
Where I struggle most is in that tension-filled space between: "put your pen down and live this moment" and "if you can't carve out time, you'll never make it." Which is where, I suppose, the few-lines-of-prose-as-you're-able work their magic.
Baby steps.
The more fully engaged, the more fully alive. That is a fabulous quote. Thank you!
Love that" Life is writing lived out loud" . My daughter once said to me, I should live life and not write about it... ( she was 14 at the time).
I find that writing IS living, living deep inside. When and if someone reads it, and if I’ve done it well, they too live what I lived.
Ha! Worthwhile observation. Seems like we could draw a similar diagram to the one in the post with "living life" and "writing about life" as the two extremes.
Makes we wonder if the arc really stops. Could it maybe wrap right around into a circle?
Oooh, great question! At what point are you fully living, but as a character(s) in a fictional story.
And maybe the one end of the arc, the writing about life part, becomes writing about imaginary and delightful possibilities, rather than real life, so.... fiction!
Yes!!
As a side note: sometimes the location in which you offer your creativity matters to its perception/reception. My illustrations were often rejected as "too sophisticated" for the children's book market in the USA. But I so enjoyed creating quirky detailed illustrations that I self-published and contented myself with a small but dedicated audience. Then, luckily, my work got picked up by someone in Australia where it now has a larger readership *and* I am able to continue to do my detailed artist bookwork. My work is still rejected in the US as "too sophisticated" - oh well! They love my work in Australia. Sometimes it can be helpful to look for publication/distribution outside the country you live in.
Hi Sue. I’ve just had a quick look at your illustrations online and I think they are wonderful, but then I am an Australian, so I would! Your post reminded me of when my first child was a toddler and I would take him to the library. While I was carefully choosing books I thought were suitable for his age, i.e. not too “sophisticated”, he would be randomly pulling books of the shelves that he’d bring to me. Invariably they were books that I thought were beyond him, but to humour him would borrow a few of his selections along with my own. Time and again I would find that he would sit enthralled through the longer, “more sophisticated” books and want me to read them again and again. I pretty quickly learnt that I was way underestimating what children were capable of comprehending.
Thank you for looking me up and for your wonderful comment! I think most kids are quite capable and enjoy fun challenges for the most part... and are certain able to ask questions if something is confusing. And I consider the adults who may have to read a book to a kid more than a dozen times...isn't a kindness to that adult to have some level of interest for them too? As George says in this post about the writers consideration of the reader. Anyway, affection to you in Australia and Thank you again!
agree for sure! I must have read Where the Wild Things Are ten thousand times, seems like, and what kept me going were the pictures. Same with A Snowy Day and all Lio Lionni books, all William Steig. And the simple story told. Wow, haven't thought of these in many years.. But along with other things I can't bear to part with, some of these books are still in the closet under the stairs in the house I have to get cleared out soon.
Yes!!!! I am the same way with all of the authors/books you name!!! Thank goodness for fun images and a simple story well told!!
Yes, indeed, I so many of the books I read to my kids, I was discovering for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed. Nothing better than snuggling up with your kids and reading a great story.
❤❤❤❤❤
Sue, I just looked you up and your art is lovely. I especially admire the crows. Hello from across the river in Portland :)
Thank you so much for looking me up and for your kind words!!! And hello to you too!! 😊
I'm intimidated by the idea of publishing, because unlike writing, the publishing world is unknown territory involving things I may not be good at--public speaking, schmoozing, learning the secret language of publishers, knowing who is who among agents and editors, and negotiating deals. It's a steep learning curve.
Amazon certainly is the major force in bookselling but I don’t think most writers or readers are aware of how much power is possessed by independent bookstores, especially when it comes to the books that are more “writer” than “reader.” Amazon is Goliath and Independent bookstores are David, right? Well, that’s true to a large extent. But there are certain independent booksellers, certain people, who have enormous personal and professional power and influence. Early in my career, while doing book tours, I often wondered why I was traveling a thousand miles to sell one book. But I learned that I was building relationships—schmoozing—with the booksellers. Yeah, it’s total capitalism even when it’s independent.
Sherman, you were very close with Bob who owned Twenty-Third Avenue Books in Portland, Oregon. I worked with Bob there and remember how the two of you engaged with one another whenever you came to read from something new. He adored you and couldn't contain himself whenever we knew you were on the way. Personal engagement and interactions as such feel like they're born out of everyone's individual and funny way of looking at life. Like books, we live as we write ourselves, if we live and write well.
That is so kind of you to share. Great memories. Yes, in this book life, I’ve made so many good friends.
I understand your concerns, but in today's market only the big-selling writers get sent off on tours where they do readings. Most writers sit around at home, hoping someone may want to interview them. As far as negotiating deals: a writer is lucky to get one offer, so negotiating is not going to be a problem for most. (I hope whatever you're selling sets off a bidding war--i don't know you, so i have no idea where in your writing career you are writing from.) I don't mean to belittle your concerns--they are entirely valid. The vast majority of people have a fear of public speaking. And anything having to do with signing contracts is intimidating. I'm just saying that for most of us, these aren't going to turn out to be big problems.
If only!
My experience of publishing short stories has nothing to do with any of that stuff. It's just researching markets and submitting. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Of course it's different if you're shopping a novel or a collection.
Yeah, there’s really no mechanism for an individual author to “sell” the magazine where they’ve published a story.m
I was speaking to a previous comment about publishing containing so much “unknown territory” and how “art versus commerce” plays into that. And there’s no way to speak of my expertise in these matters without sounding like an egomaniac.
Thank you!
Betsy, I have a fear of public speaking, which is now under control. A friend of mine who owns a books on tape company admitted to me that she also used to have that fear, but managed to overcome it. She set up her studio for a "reading" and we invited a friendly audience, and that allowed me to practice reading of a story I wrote in front of a crowd. Before the "reading" I rehearsed it with my actor/director/ theater friends. Do you know any actors? They can coach you through this fear. People loved helping me! It was so generous. Look for the helpers. They want to see you succeed.
I used to rely on propanalol!
I had to look up that drug! I've never heard of it before. Propanalol...I've learned something new. It worked?
do not mean to push drugs here on substack. But yes, it's fantastic and it truly works. Taken by many Broadway actors, etc. There is no change in your feelings. It just simply cuts away the fight or flight response so your heart doesn't begin to pound.
Man. Why didn't anyone tell me? All I had was that deep breathing shit.
The old everyone in their underwear trick always works for me.
ha! i remember one doctor suggesting yoga when i told him i was anxious. AS IF.
I still resent the fact I have to do other stuff than write. When I started out, I made a good living out of my novels. Then, around ten years ago, I realised I was spending more time selling myself than writing. Or doing other work to fill the gaps. And the situation hasn't changed. My last advance, after ten novels, was less than my first advance. But hey, I'm still getting published and I am truly grateful for that. Also it has surprising benefits. Like starting my Substack thread, which I wouldn't have done if I was making money like back in the day. And now I really enjoy it. So there's always an upside. And the main upside is, as George says, writing is a lovely life-affirming thing to do. It gives you a voice. Even if very few people get to hear it.
Thankyou for your honesty. Most writers fantasies are built on JK Rowling type success. And this kind of bursts that.
As soon as I escorted my literary heroes out of my writing room, politely of course, my writing improved. I can write. I know that, have known it since childhood (as I suspect most of us have), and have been fortunate enough to make part of my living by writing. But what has been so restrictive, what has held me back (or anyway did), was the constant & deliberate focus on the other, on where to land on that "rainbow arc". Who, finally, cares? I think George has it right when he writes of taking responsibility for where, or if, you land. I don't think you can help if & where you land. You're airborne. That's all that matters. I've had the great good fortune to meet some of my heroes & to spend some time last summer with one of them. He & I had an exchange similar to today's post. His response to this whole issue of art v commerce was: "I don't care." In other words, his prose lands where it lands. I know it sounds glib, but glib this guy isn't. A little silly maybe, but not glib. "Just write," he said to me, most sincerely, meaning that the power of true sincerity & the willingness to connect will carry the prose. I've known this all along, of course. We probably all have known this! It's acknowledging this that is so freeing. Somewhere Kurt Vonnegut mentions having written everything to his sister Jane, that she was the other to whom he connected, the power the drove that heart-stopping, funny, wicked prose.
I love that, that idea of writing for one person who likes it.
It does seem to concentrate the mind.
Wow !
The image of rich Midas at his writing desk reminds me of a scene in a TV show in which an independently wealthy young man says to a homicide detective, "I've always wondered about having a job. Is it nice?"
Loved this part:
"Are we interested, curious, noticing, changing our view, always changing our view, loving the world, compelled by the beauty of language? Nothing can take those things away from us and, the truth is, nothing external can give them to us either."
It's tempting, to me at least, to want to keep the world at arm's length. I hate to admit it, but perhaps I'm better off not being wealthy enough to do so. The need to make a living compels closeness with the world. Even when I don't like how things are going, in here and out there, being curious about and loving the world is always available. There's freedom in that.
Love this, AJ.
Lovely and gorgeously articulated, as always. I've nothing else to add other than to say I try to write the types of things I like to read. As I don't read commercial best-sellers, I don't expect to write a commercial best-seller. Nor deep, complicated, literary fiction. I'm hoping to write a novel roughly two-thirds of the way to the R, and then see what happens.
2/3 way is a good balance!
Another home run post by our resident Bodhisattva. Good antidote to a, perhaps fallacious, angst point. Often we invisible writers are more tortured by our “heroes” than reality - our own or actual, out there reality. So say, like me, your a DF Wallace fan. Well, talk about pyrotechnics!! So maybe I try to write, even in my own way, pyrotechnically and, because I ain’t a genius and Wallace most certainly was, the result is UGH. Or, say, you’re a John Irving acolyte and - voila - you find yourself trying to be Charles Dickens. So maybe along with “kill your darlings” we should add “kill your heroes”.
Joining Story Club amplifies this tension more than anything else I can think of. You join because George is a hero. And then, as a member, you watch George humanize himself. It's a necessary weekly reminder well worth the price of admission, wouldn't you say?
i joined because I loved George's book on writing and knew this would be a great place to learn more. I can't say George was my hero when I joined. To me, he was incredibly bright, had written some amazing stories and a killer novel, and had revealed himself to be a true mensch in A Swim, Pond, Rain. But now--as he "humanizes himself," as you say, as he continues to respond in his inimitable way, full of kindness and hope, as he listens to us and works with us and wants for us(!!), he has become a sort of hero to me. He's someone i look up to and learn from. He continually reveals himself to be a noble human. I want to be like him--more compassionate and less judgmental. More willing to see beauty everywhere. So for me, it's the opposite of you--from not my hero to hero! (But exactly like you, I came for the cookies and found a full-on feast! Very much worth every penny!)
It's funny, I actually had the exact same experience and just defined the two sides differently. When I used the term "hero," I thought of it in terms of the unattainable: ie. fame, success, other-ness. But you're right, George continues to show himself to be worth looking up to. "Noble" is the right word. Beyond all the writing and career stuff, if there's anything I'd like to emulate from the guy, it's his nobility (not to put too much pressure on you, George!).
I only knew of George from Lincoln in the Bardo, which I struggled with at first and then grew to love and appreciate in some kind of deep way. After joining Story Club, I found A Swim and started getting stunned by his short stories.
Heroes aren't heroes because they succeed, they're heroes because they try despite all the odds against it. If you read any honest author, they'll tell you every new story or book is a leap into the unknown; and learning how to be comfortable taking that leap is a lot of becoming a writer. Every Writer, no matter published or unpublished, famous or unknown, always faces the same thing at the begining - the void of an empty page. It's scary, but somewhere in there is your story, and you're not going to find it just looking at it. Go find it. Go find a part of yourself you didn't know existed. It's the greatest razz in the universe...
Love that! Reminds me that my heroes only became themselves when they became themselves.
In the ninth century, the Buddhist sage Lin Chi told a monk, "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him."
I think of those writers who are “one-hit wonders.” I won’t name any of them because I don’t mean to be cruel or insulting. But I think of how a book (usually the author’s first) goes epic—how it’s often an book that arcs more toward the “writer” but still manages to sell like a book arcing toward the “reader.” And then comes the aftermath. What happens to the soul of those writers whose books never again sell like that? I have writer friends and acquaintances who’ve experienced this but I’ve never asked them how they feel about it. It feels like a question that one writer would never ask another.
I'm very close to a person who had this experience. While i can't answer for him, let me say that the sale of an "epic" novel has allowed him to do just about anything he wants to in life, and also led to large advances for his later books. He continues to write and explore. He has a great life! He will always be known for his big one, but hey, we should all have such problems.
Large advances are scary! So much pressure!
Again, we should all have such pressures... (I may have mis-spoken about his advances. Thinking back on it, I think he may have sold each book separately and so didn't have the pressure of receiving money for books not yet written.)
Yes, and that “art versus commerce” big advance pressure can highly influence where on that “writer” to “reader” arc that any of us might be
it's all so complicated. i turned down an advance because i couldn't handle the pressure. Later, i realized that probably made the publisher less invested in me. (And in the end, they didn't buy the second book they'd offered an advance for, and I ended up selling it to another publisher for less than the first one had offered.) The entire marketing part of writing sucks
It’s a job and it’s a job I love.
That’s so interesting. I imagine a spectrum from bitterness to gratitude. I saw a video recently about a singer-songwriter who had one giant hit in the late 1970s and then seemed to vanish. The video was made by a group of high school students about “our most beloved substitute teacher.” He seems to have taken the aftermath in stride. And he still plays music in small venues. Loving life and exuding grace.
I remember an interview with an 80s one-hit wonder band—though I can’t remember who exactly—where the lead singer said, “It’s better than being a no-hit wonder.”
Right. And there’s never knowing how something you wrote or sang or painted that might seem to have failed still moves people in a soul-saving way long after you’re dead.
George mentioned Confederacy of Dunces, with which I wasn't familiar, so in reading about the author, John Kennedy Toole, I see your point highlighted in that author's tragic life story, David.
Right! Amazing life (and book) story.
I have a friend who got his first novel published with a big fat advance. So exciting! But it didn’t sell well. Since then no one will take a chance on his second book.
Curious to know what is considered a big advance?
It was $60,000. This was around 10 years ago.
An average advance from a big publisher is appx $10,000. A big advance would start at appx $100,000.
Oh, that is so tough to hear. Dang.
It was a good lesson for me, who hasn’t published a novel yet, and maybe never will. Happy ending to this otherwise dismal tale is that he is still writing, giving readings locally — he is still alive.
As a George writes in this post, a writer is always a writer if they’re writing.
Yes - that’s the point, isn’t it. Just write anyway. It’s an inside job.
Victims of their own success are the words that come to mind. It takes courage to accept success and go all in again. Sometimes second novels are worse, sometimes the third or fourth was the one the writer was working upto. Most Nobel laureates have a body of work and not the single hit.
They’re in it for the long run. Can we be in it for this one astonishing moment, and for the long run? Ah, why not?
The first short story I ever got published had the lines: “My stories are me talking to myself, hoping somebody will overhear. I’ve always felt like I spy on life rather than being a part of it. It’s odd. My work can’t be meaningful all on its own; other people have to find it meaningful. I have to know what other people find meaningful to make meaning for them. But if I were good with people, I wouldn’t be turning inward to entertain myself. I probably wouldn’t be a writer.”
This was right at the start of the pandemic. And it was another year before I had another short story published. I credit it entirely to deciding to make an effort to talk directly to people rather than wait to be overheard. Until I realized that writing what I liked AND conveying it in an vivid, intelligent, fun, and most importantly, understandable ways was what readers wanted, I was only ever accidentally good. When I learned what readers like to read, how they read, I learned to put names to things that I liked when I read, but didn’t know was a thing. I could then consciously work those things into my writing. It’s fun to understand, “Oh, that’s how Great Writer did that.” It’s amazing when a reader responded to my work. I learned what mattered to me by writing for other people, and I began to enjoy my own work a lot more.
Thank you for this. It speaks to issues that have been at the forefront of my mind for a while now, and you're saying things that I think I needed to hear.
"Are we interested, curious, noticing, changing our view, always changing our view, loving the world, compelled by the beauty of language? Nothing can take those things away from us and, the truth is, nothing external can give them to us either." This is just wonderful. Writing is a way of being...or better, a way of giving. I think one of the traps in the art vs. commerce dichotomy, one that I myself frequently fall into, is thinking that writing has to exist in some kind of pure form, separate from human messiness and corruption, so that everything can be redeemed within it. But if we think of art as a rejection of commerce, it can become something reactionary that simply sets up its own form of "currency". Does writing redeem, transmute? I think, in a way, it does...but it doesn't take from the world, doesn't use up resources...it gives to the world, revealing what was always already redeemed. (And nothing is separate.)
I agree that the best writing occurs when there is some sort of audience in mind. (The world is made of relations, and there's a kind of falsity in separating ourselves from that.) And I agree that every writer has their own ideal audience, and part of the journey of writing is figuring out what that audience is. Maybe we're writing for mass appeal, maybe we're writing for a much smaller audience...maybe we're writing to only one person, maybe even God. But the critical part is that the "audience-mirror" that we use to refine our work must be incorporated into our own being, in the sense that it doesn't provide us with something we don't have already. We should write not to get something out of our audience (approval, respect, whatever), but rather to share, to give.
Zoe. This is so spot on. What a difference between writing in order to be loved versus writing in order to give love.
"There is less interest in concealment in the name of not being corny; more interest in giving the reader the simple facts she needs in order for the stakes to rise; the writer becomes committed to taking the reader on a wild-but-meaningful ride; I note a movement toward simplicity and real human feeling." That's the thing. For me the difference between something that happened and a story I want to write is just that. The event lies on the page with much of its import concealed. The import is in there. But buried more or less. I have a long fight with getting the import clear enough to be a wild and meaningful ride. Even when I see it, is it clear enough for the reader? Thanks, thanks, thanks! This essay is a ray of light.